Friday, August 16, 2013

People In Your Neighborhood



"you are beautiful because you don't look at love as a competition / and you know how to lose"
that quote is going up somewhere in my house. i think it is a profound and life changing way to look at love, especially romantic love- knowing how to lose. It fits well with the way I use Buddhist principles in my life and the kind of person I am always trying to be.

This little memory essay is so evocative and moving... I loved it. Through The Darkness

Have you heard about the death of  18 year old Israel Hernandez?  He was an artist and a tagger, and while tagging a building he was caught by the police. He ran away, they followed and tazed him, and he died. He died for tagging. Now, his family is questioning why he had bruises on his face. Yes, I know the police have an incredibly difficult job, yes I know that it's much easier to backseat navigate than make the choices the police make in the heat of the moment, yes I realize that if they simply tazed him, they had no idea he would die. None of that means it is not completely worthwhile and imperative for us to look at this situation and ask if tazing is a necessary or acceptable means in a scenario where the person has done such a lesser crime. 

A new study has shown a significant link between the drugs used to induce labor and autism. 

I loved this piece in Salon on Generation X and how we are doing midlife. Some parts resonated clearly with me, especially Mrs. Scribner's questioning why so many of our generation's intellectuals have retreated from public life. I have been noticing the same thing in the last few years and wondering why that was- take Dave Eggers, for example. He works consistently and beautifully on a variety of projects involving movies, novels, memoir and his organization for young people, 826 Valencia  as well as the magazine McSweenys, but rarely gives interviews of any kind, and has been notably withdrawn from the face of his own organizations.

Of course you are going to feel your heart breaking as you read this, and yes, it is worth it. The Gift of Charles

Issue 8 of Unshod Quills, the literary mag of my insane talent posse of friends, Dena Rash Guzman and Wendy Ellis, is live. ENJOY.






previous next