March 8, 2022, 12:23 a.m. I’ve been counting time, reckoning. . . It’s been 26 years, 1 week, and 2 days. . . It’s been 4 years, 2 months, and 28 days. . . It had been 3 years, 10 months, and 22 days. . . The siege of Sarajevo lasted for . . .
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Like many of you, I’ve been glued to the news this past week following Putin’s senseless, illegal, and immoral war on neighboring Ukraine. Our eyes are filled with images showing the horrors of Russia’s invasion. We stand in solidarity with the people of the Ukraine and our hearts and thoughts are with . . .
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(Amherst, MA, 03/04/2022) If there is ink for this hour if there is something to say to write that would send the tanks the convoys and transports into reverse on the roads they have rutted send them back to the borders they crossed send them back, and the hours too that have . . .
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(Photo by David Lombardo) Last night it rained, and then turned cold.Today the trees are coated in ice,every bare branch, every tiny needleon the evergreens. Now the sun’s come out,the sparkle on the trees is dazzling,enough to lift the heaviest heart,enough to make you think this world’snot so hopeless as it seemed . . .
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WHOEVER VISITS BELGIUM as a tourist might happen upon Fort Breendonk, halfway between Brussels and Antwerp. The fortress was built during World War I. I don’t know what purpose it served then, but in the Second World War, during the short eighteen days of resistance by the Belgian Army in May of . . .
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A review of City of Champions: A History of Triumph and Defeat in Detroit by Stefan Szymanski and Silke-Maria Weineck Sporting events—like tragic accidents or illnesses, early friendships, or financial crises—are ubiquitous human experiences. Many, maybe most of us suffered through team sports as kids, a few excelling, others turning towards books . . .
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Tonight, driving home from the Mass Review office, I listened to a report on All Things Considered. An expert from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies opined on the distinctions between “invasion” and “incursion” and how best to describe what’s happening today in Ukraine. It’s difficult, of course, to keep one’s blood from boiling, or to . . .
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A Review of Kyle T. Mays, An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States. Beacon Press, 2021 This book review was written as a part of Black Natives: Anti-Blackness, Indigeneity, and Decolonization, a course at Hampshire College which focused on Afro-Indigenous scholarship and lived experiences, engaged through discussion, readings and guest speakers. Class members include: Nathacha . . .
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Photo from Mondonuovo, directed by Davide Ferrario, produced by Movie Movie, Bologna, 2003. This year, during the second night of January, one of our favorite writers passed away. Gianni Celati was a brilliant thinker, an innovative, experimental stylist, and an influential translator—and most of all, he cared about people, about communities, and about . . .
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A review of Visions of Crumbling Houses and Conversations with the Wind Taking Flight by Gianna Celati. In the “Foreword” to his Conversations with the Wind Taking Flight, Gianni Celati states that: Writing is a conversation with whoever will read us, and conversations carry us like the wind—we never really know what the . . .
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