Alex Kudera's Blog

Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard

"My father said he wanted to return Kant's Prolegomena and Marx's Dissertation, both of which he had finished. He took the two volumes out of his medical bag and put them down on the table. Then he mentioned the books that he would like to borrow: Nietzsche's On the Future of our Educational Institutions, a French edition of Pascal's Pensées, and Diderot's Mystification.

~~ from Gargoyles by Thomas Bernhard

Injustice has a cure.

No one should die of tuberculosis. Give now.

Donald Zagoria

Legendary historian and author Donald Zagoria passed on at 97 years young earlier this month. He's survived by his son, basketball and tennis journalist Adam Zagoria, and books including Vietnam Triangle: Moscow, Peking, Hanoi. In 1976, Donald had a chance to discuss China on Firing Line with William F. Buckley. Rest in peace, Donald Zagoria.

Do stories have something to say?

“Do stories, apart from happening, being, have something to say? For all my skepticism, some trace of irrational superstition did survive in me, the strange conviction, for example, that everything in life that happens to me also has a sense, that it means something, that life speaks to us about itself through its story, that it gradually reveals a secret, that it takes the form of a rebus whose message must be deciphered, that the stories we live compromise the mythology of our lives and in that mythology lies the key to truth and mystery. Is it an illusion? Possibly, even probably, but I can’t rid myself of the need continually to decipher my own life.”

~~ from The Joke by Milan Kundera

Heavy Feather Review

Submit to Heavy Feather Review and friends.

Eclectica Magazine

Submit to Eclectica Magazine.

The Complete Works of Rick Harsch

Consider an introduction to the literature of Rick Harsch

Help Corona\Samizdat fight tariff madness.

Help Corona\Samizdat Press fight tariff madness by donating or buying books.

Gare du Nord

"A testament to the proficiency of France’s railway workers, we arrived roughly on time in Gare du Nord, Paris. A station where [James] Joyce penned a letter to his brother, observing: 'I hate the bustle but the station has its own strange poetry, the sound of footsteps, the distant whistle of the steam engines, and the sudden clanging of the signal bell.'"

the literary scene

Emily Sipiora's Victim Radio presents Mark de Silva on the literary scene.