In the nondescript lower reaches of Northern Paris, not quite up the hill to Montmartre, is a scuzzy little bar called Chat Noir (en anglais: Black Cat). It doesn’t serve food though you can bring it in and eat sitting at the long ground-floor bar or one of the few tables there. For a Parisian…
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Odysseus in Print and on Screen
Last summer in Provincetown I read Homer’s Odyssey. At Columbia 67 years ago, as a freshman, I was exposed by force of the mandatory two year Contemporary Civilizations Curriculum to engage the classics; public high school in Brooklyn was light on Greek literature, to put it mildly. I recall being painfully exposed to the Iliad…
Royal Decree of Poetry
Special Guest – Peter Honig There are no more poems. Where these poems come from. In their day they were kind of a big deal, but the Royal Poem Store is now closed for business. All poems that have been issued life-time warrantees are now officially NULL & VOID as the day they were…
I’ve Been Reading Poetry
Historically, I was captured into 19th century poetry by my mother, who forced me to memorize all of Longfellow’s poem Evangeline. (Btw, I will be one of several readers of that poem in an event at the chapel at Mount Auburn Cemetery on February 24, so let me know if you can attend please). In…
Global Update/Where Have I Been?
Good question as I have not posted since last summer’s end. It has been a busy time although you did not know it–until now. Prose: Amazon and B&N carry my seven published books of which two are prose: Noir Ain’t the Half of It is a collection of short stories with foci on, well, noir–but…
Help Me Decide: What Next?
With the publication of the novel The Event I now have time to turn to my next project. I continue to write poetry and short stories, and next year I will try my hand at another collection of recent poetry, but beyond that I am considering a couple of projects. One possibility is to edit and publish…
Novel Published at Last
It has been a few months since I posted. I was busy with final edits to my first published novel, and it came out August 1: title is The Event. You can access the book at Amazon, and your ordering the book (and if you like it, then posting a positive Amazon review) would be greatly appreciated. …
Chatbox and Skynet
This is a post about writing; this site is about writing. Chatbox has been in the news as an electronic app that can write with some intelligence on any subject. Skynet is a fictional electronic system that attempts to destroy the world. What the hell am I talking about? We start with Terminator I, the…
Something Novel About My Novel
For months I have been promising announcement of my seventh book, a novel entitled EVENT. It was hoped for a Spring birth but it isn’t going to make it– well, perhaps but not likely. A final read by my final reader resulted in a two hour phone call explaining my failures: lack of clarity of…
Cold Death
The other day was cold and windy. The other day an old friend was buried. I do not know which is worse: to be buried in the cold of winter when everything else is dead, or in the heat of summer when the greenery of life makes stark contrast. Of course, that question is of…
New Story Posted Here: Parallel Universes
A few days ago I promised a story about parallel universes (see immediately prior post), with a speculation on the moral and eschatological implications. Here it is; the thing about parallel universes is that they are identical until they are not– the word of the day seems to be that they “fork” in time. Here…
About Parallel Universes
The Case for Parallel Universes If you pay attention, you learn that our universe is abuzz with various theories of alternative universes. Part of the reason for the buzz is the nascent state of metaverses, electronic worlds that produces gaming, advertising opportunities, and the counter-intuitive practice of purchasing merchandise to be worn by or used…
Announcing a New Book of Poetry
I am excited to announce the publication of my newest (fifth) book of poetry, entitle Burn-Out. The volume of almost 200 pages contains poetry written during the two years ending August, 2022. The prompts for this work are the terrible state of the world (war, pestilence, loss of hope) and the poetic effort to come…
Refrigerator Magnet Suggestions
A Quantative and Qualitative Analysis of Certain Refrigerator Magnets “Life sucks and then you die” “Suck” is factually relative as to both its nature and quantity. What is the base-line against which to measure the life in question? For example, are we lining up that life against Nat Turner, Marilyn Monroe or Mick Jagger?…
A Pre-Taste of Upcoming Novel
This is a shameless teaser. After the first of the year, you will receive notice of publication of my spy novel. You will no doubt rush to Amazon and order several copies, one for yourself and one for every friend who is still talking to you. Recalling that the theme is a poison agent dropped…
Shelf Life
People—that includes you and me—are just like a can of cling peaches or a box of Wheaties sitting on the shelf at the supermarket. Each of these items has a “best used by” date and each has a pull date. So do people. Of course the peach slices, the cereal flakes and the people…
A Poem for a Cloudy Day
I don’t know why I have delayed doing anything with this particular poem; probably because it is more of a ramble without real focus and perhaps not a poem at all so much as a diary entry. I have, frankly, reduced the text and broken this into two poems, one of which will appear in…
Attend Poetry Reading November 13
Please join me at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA at 2pm on Sunday, November 13, for a poetry reading sponsored by the New England Poetry Club. I am honored to be one of the featured readers, and will read from my most recently published book (Laertes in America) as well as a couple of new…
About a New Novel
Many of you well know that I have been attempting to find an agent or publisher for my most recent novel, a thriller which I thought was pretty topical: the US military releases a biological weapon into the water supply of Russian Ukraine. Alas, those well known fellas whose names scream out at you from…
Cantab Lounge in Cambridge Reborn
My post in mid-July noted a read at the Chat Noir poetry club in Paris. Recently I read in a very similar venue (basement of Cantab Lounge in Central Square, Cambridge), an historic venue and home before COVID of various slams and weekly readings with open mike. Exciting to be back to the re-opened…