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Brooklyn Rail: Michael Row the Boat Ashore

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"An Exposition Upon the Inspirations & Sources for my Historical Novel, 'Row The Boat Ashore."

Once upon a time, when I looked at the sky, I saw will. Today, the sky is the disappointments of my ancestors, as many lives as they had, as far as the eye can see.

In 1996, I wanted to publish a novel. I had already written a few, the third of which I believed was good enough to live on as a book—something which hadn't happened. It was not an easy time to publish, and I decided to distinguish myself with historical fiction, which is notoriously difficult to write—to research and invoke. …

Guernica: The Manson Family Dolls Pt. 1 & 2

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"The Family Dolls, Featuring Charlie, Leslie & More! & Why it's ok to play with Manson family paper dolls: an introduction to John Reed's Manson Family Paper Doll book. Print & Color Yourself!"

Leslie had one of those big tooth smiles that makes you want to find a van and coax her in and drive her to the end of the earth and stay there with her.

She was attracted to smart bad-boy types, maybe because her father had some bad boy (alcoholic, divorced mom and remarried), maybe because living in the suburbs was like breathing in a plastic bag, maybe because being middle class in 1965 meant having to deal with the Vietnam War, how wrong it was, and how she and every other middle-class kid was culpable. …

Guernica: Art & History & The Manson Family Paper Dolls

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"And why it's ok to play with Manson Family Paper Dolls."

I have not been good. I have stumbled into this life with the blessing of God, and rolled through 100,000 years of all the disappointments of my millions of mothers and fathers. I have lived as a cruel, selfish killer among my brothers and sisters. I have hurt those I love and been hurt by them. I have sought the destruction of strangers as casually as I glance to the sky, and have found that even the saints are devils, that cognizance itself is contradiction, hypocrisy, and that we are all liars, all the time. …

The Seventh Wave: Claim + Thesis = Evidence

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A lecture, I can’t quite recall the course title: The Something Something of Power. I was fulfilling a requirement at Hampshire College. Hampshire is a hotbed for creative and political thinking; I was only there for the creative. The course was sought-after, and didn't look too terribly painful. Michael Klare, the professor, is/was a highly regarded activist, author, and political thinker. The course would explore the dynamics of power, policy making, the manipulation of democratic populations, and the history of civil disobedience in the United States — from the workers unions and the labor clashes of the early twentieth century to the non-violent resistance of the late 60's.

Rolling Stone: Shirley Chisholm’s Newly Unearthed ‘Do Women Dare?’ Speech Is Just as Relevant Today

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In July 1971, Shirley Chisholm began to talk about it. Chisholm, who in 1968 had become the first African American woman elected to Congress, would run for president. The congresswoman from New York announced her intentions to secure the Democratic nomination in September, and formally announced on Jan. 25, 1972. The Democratic candidates who sought to oppose President Nixon’s bid for a second term counted “Fighting Shirley” and nine white men, all of whom had higher degrees, like Chisholm. …

Observer: ‘Liquid Reality’ at MoMA Explores the Intersections of Shigeko Kubota

Fluxus is everything we’re interested in now: mixed media, beyond categorization, collaborative processes. But Fluxus isn’t the first thing we talk about; it isn’t the toast of the table, or the footnote on the opening page. Fluxus is too many mediums, too many people, and we need heroes with superpowers. To sell Wheaties and paintings and records and newspapers and search histories and all the junkola we need to be heroes to ourselves—like brand new Cadillacs, and Hermes belts, and Dr. Squatch soap. 

Observer: Wong Ping’s Work Reflects on Primitive Instinct, the Internet, and Desire

Hong Kong. After the day job, Wong Ping went back to his apartment and worked on weirdo, not very technically sophisticated animations. For friends and maybe a few other eccentric, erotic neurotics of the internet. Repressed political statement? Sure. But not when nobody was paying attention. Ten years of the brazen menagerie of proto-animals and distended body parts, and Ping has emerged as a legitimate artist with an international status. …

SuperRare: We got the funk! Do you? Bill Bernstein and Pixel 54 on the legacy of Studio 54

Studio 54 is no more: not in the way we remember. No man on the moon with a coke spoon sign above the door—no crazies and geniuses and going-up-in-flames beauties. Bill Bernstein documented life at Studio 54 and NYC discos for three years, and through the film rolls, we keep going back. Night Fever: New York Disco 1977–1979, The Bill Bernstein Photographs was on display at New York Museum of Sex for three years—and you can buy a book (Disco, from Reel Art Press), or print editions, direct from Bernstein himself. …

The Forward: When Even A Boy Einstein Doesn’t Have ‘All The Answers’

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Michael Kupperman grew up in Connecticut, hidden away in suburbia along with a family secret; Kupperman’s professor father, Joel Kupperman, had been a child star, one of the most popular and recognized child stars of his generation.

As the “genius” boy Einstein of the largely rigged show “Quiz Kids,” Joel Kupperman had been cast as exemplar to a less objectionable popularization of the Jewish people. …

The New York Times: 'Francis Bacon in Your Blood: A Memoir'

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Reviewing 'Francis Bacon in Your Blood: A Memoir,' by Michael Peppiatt 

When Michael Peppiatt, at 21, met Francis Bacon, the 53-year-old artist was already all artifice, well spoken when well rehearsed, his bistro doctrines applauded by clinking glasses. Peppiatt, having taken over a student arts journal at Cambridge, had shown up in London’s Soho. It was 1963, and Peppiatt laid claim to but a tenuous introduction to the renowned painter he sought. …

The Brooklyn Rail: 'The Solitary Twin' by Harry Mathews

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During the years I was pursuing my graduate degree in creative writing at Columbia University, Harry Mathews was a beloved mentor, and in the years since, as I’ve been faculty at The New School graduate writing program, he has been not only a mentor, but a colleague and a friend.

Ok, actually, I did overlap with Mathews at Columbia University and at The New School, but I never took a class with him, and I never talked to him. …

Times Literary Supplement: ‘Georgia’ a novel by Dawn Trip

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Well, for those of you who subscribe to the Times Literary Supplement, I have a review of Dawn Tripp's novel, Georgia in this week's issue:

Wilully, Americans tell the story of Georgia O’Keeffe: the story of the southwestern female artist and pioneer. The story is wrong in three ways: once for the remnants of the arguments it contains, mounted by art critics in the 1920s, that O’Keeffe embodied the art of a woman, more sensual ...