The interruption did nothing but earn her a similar slap, as I’m sure she knew it would. Sometimes I wondered if my mother spoke up at the wrong time on purpose. As often as we endured my father’s abuse, she had to be aware that it wouldn’t sav...
The study of law can be disappointing at times, a matter of applying narrow rules and arcane procedure to an uncooperative reality; a sort of glorified accounting that serves to regulate the affairs of those who have power--and that all too often see...
Mister Dresden," he said. "And Miss Rodriguez, I believe. I didn't realize you were an art collector." "I am the foremost collector of velvet Elvii in the city of Chicago," I said at once. "Elvii?" Marcone inquired. "The plural could be Elvises, I gu...
One of the most brilliant Russian writers of the twentieth century, Yevgeny Zamyatin belongs to the tradition in Russian literature represented by Gogol, Leskov, Bely, Remizov, and, in certain aspects of their work, also by Babel and Bulgakov. It is ...
About dreams. It is usually taken for granted that you dream of something that has made a particularly strong impression on you during the day, but it seems to me it´s just the contrary. Often it´s something you paid no attention to at the time -- ...
Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose, keep in touch (or don't), care about birthdays, waste and lose time, brush their teeth, feel nostalgia, scrub stains, have religions and political parties and laws, wear keepsakes, apologize ...
Countless times, I have imagined A. rising through the rivers of this land, to the surface of Florida to be found again, pulled into the air by new hands. The possibilities are endless, but most often I imagine him found by children. Above him, the s...
Are you a censor? Do you tell people not to say “girl”? Shame on you! If nothing offends you, you’re a saint or you’re psychotic. If a few things offend you, deal with them--fairly. If you’re often offended by things, you’re probably a se...
He glanced back at the wall. How like a mirror, too, her face. Impossible; for how many people did you know who reflected your own light to you? People were more often--he searched for a simile, found one in his work--torches, blazing away until they...
Farrell had seen pure white drunkenness before, but not often enough to recognize it at sight. He knew the thing itself, however--the freight train rattling and lurching comically from hilarity to slobbering sorrow, picking up speed as it passed thro...
Another response to racism has been the establishment of unlearning racism workshops, which are often led by white women. These workshops are important, yet they tend to focus primarily on cathartic individual psychological personal prejudice without...
Cats have a sort of game they play when they meet. A player alternates between watching the strange cat and ignoring her, grooming or examining everything around herself - a dead leaf, a cloud - with complete absorption. It is almost accidental how t...
Father-daughter incest is not only the type of incest most frequently reported but also represents a paradigm of female sexual victimization. The relationship between father and daughter, adult male and female child, is one of the most unequal relati...
There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman forever...
All humans at some time experience injustice, assault, disqualification, invasion and betrayal. No person is completely shielded. We need not trace our family trees very far back or study for long what life was like for our forbears to uncover humani...
It is the very essence of art,' she [Hallie Flanagan:] told a group gathered in Washington . . ., 'that it exceed bounds, often including those of tradition, decorum, and that mysterious thing called taste. It is the essence of art that it shatter ac...
I often find that a novel, even a well-written and compelling novel, can become a blur to me soon after I've finished reading it. I recollect perfectly the feeling of reading it, the mood I occupied, but I am less sure about the narrative details. It...
If people have faith, peace prevails among them. There is no logic for peace. In fact, peace is the most illogical thing in this world. If we see inequality, injustice and poverty around the world, often we think—‘why people don’t fight for the...
For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await others. I believe that many who find that ‘nothing happens’ when they sit down, ...
I realized I was going to get through this disappointing service, and anyway, you have to be somewhere: better here, where I have heard truth spoken so often, than, say, at the DMV, or home alone, orbiting my own mind. And it's good to be out where o...
Racism watching is a puzzle solving activity and often involves debunking pseudo-science. The investigator must try to figure out what makes people believe in weird ideas. As Stieg said in an interview, ‘Fifty years later, people still believe in t...
