Ravi Mangla's Blog, page 6
March 21, 2016
February 29, 2016
February 24, 2016
Matthew Kirk
“Season in the Wow” by Matthew Kirk (2015)
February 16, 2016
James Baldwin
“When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.”
- James Baldwin (from The Writer’s Chapbook)
February 8, 2016
“Bernie Sanders: Together” by Jermaine Rogers
“Bernie Sanders: Together” by Jermaine Rogers
February 1, 2016
Robert Walser
“How reprehensible it is when those blessed with commodities insist on ignoring the poor. Better to torment them, force them into indentured servitude, inflict compulsion and blows—this at least produces a connection, fury and a pounding heart, and these too constitute a form of relationship. But to cower in elegant homes behind golden garden gates, fearful lest the breath of warm humankind touch you, unable to indulge in extravagances for fear they might be glimpsed by the embittered oppressed, to oppress and yet lack the courage to show yourself as an oppressor, even to fear the ones you are oppressing, feeling ill at ease in your own wealth and begrudging others their ease, to resort to disagreeable weapons that require neither true audacity nor manly courage, to have money, but only money, without splendor: That’s what things look like in our cities at present”
- Robert Walser (from The Tanners, 1907)
January 26, 2016
Thornton Dial (1928 - 2016)
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Don’t Matter How Raggly the Flag, It Still Got to Tie Us Together, 2003
(Materials: mattress coils, chicken wire, clothing, can lids, found metal, plastic twine, wire, Splash Zone compound, enamel, and spray paint on canvas on wood)
January 23, 2016
Blizzard Reading List
10 Cold Weather Short Stories:
- “Hunters in the Snow” by Tobias Wolff
- “Cold Snap” by Thom Jones
- “Winter Chemistry” by Joy Williams
- “The Pedersen Kid” by William H. Gass
- “Chopin in Winter” by Stuart Dybek
- “Mezzo” by Kate Petersen
- “The Hermit’s Story” by Rick Bass
- “Antarctica” by Laura van den Berg
- “The Hunter’s Wife” by Anthony Doerr
- “Snow” by Ann Beattie
January 22, 2016
“An Introduction to Public Statues” at Queen Mob’s Teahouse
I have a short humor piece up at Queen Mob’s Teahouse.
It is perfectly natural for a statue of a public figure to occasion certain questions. For instance, why is this dingbat enshrined in granite while I continue to languish in complete and utter obscurity? Before passing judgment, it would be wise to read the placard at the base of the statue. Perhaps this stately figure saved a litter of kittens from a burning carriage house or discovered a new strain of syphilis. Context is fundamental to any healthy appreciation of public sculpture.
- “An Introduction to Public Statues” at QMT
