Here is the lived experience of humanity, as observed and described by a seer whose great power is to fully inhabit the lives of others, with the profound empathy of a secret twin. Eduardo Galeano has made of us an icon of human being, meaning, and value; his writing sacralizes the everyman. His social … Continue reading Eduardo Galeano, on his birthday September 3 2025 revision
“Beware; I am Fearless and therefore Powerful”- Mary Shelly Our monsters, ourselves; genius, madness, inspiration, the quest to become as gods; who among us has not longed to steal the divine fire, to look beyond ourselves, to defy all limits and laws? To be, even for a moment, the unconquered Victor Frankenstein? Yet as … Continue reading Mary Shelly, on her birthday August 30 2022 revision
Gender, sexuality, and love, and the differences between them; history as a shadow prison we may free ourselves from to become fully human in whatever way we choose, the struggle for self determination and the ownership of identity between self and others, and seizures of power as an act of creative revolt against patriarchal … Continue reading Jeanette Winterson, on her birthday August 27 2022 revision
“The original is unfaithful to the translation.” Jorge Borges Like a magician, Jorge Borges abandoned fictions in which invented characters are realized as figments and instead created stories in which his readers become fictional. Opening a door between personal psychology and universal myths, his poetic incantations made us larger than we were, connected us with … Continue reading Jorge Borges, on his birthday August 24 2025 revision
Passion, madness, chaos, and the looming primordial darkness from which we emerge, but also a poetry of liberation, transgression, the sacredness of nature, and a renegotiation of gender and identity from which new possibilities of being human may yet arise; Ted Hughes is a trickster who wears many masks. A revolutionary feminism and … Continue reading Ted Hughes, on his birthday August 17 2022 revision
Phantasms, grotesques, narratives of oblique intent, the capering of monstrosities; the novels of John Hawkes are experiments in transgression, of cruelties and impossible eroticism. Here we have the delights of that most American of diversions, the carnival freak show, as a metaphor for the whole world of human diversity and wonders, and our distorted … Continue reading John Hawkes, on his birthday August 17 2025 revision
Absurdism, satire, ironic humor, subversion of authority and the play of language; as a forerunner of Existentialism his immortal novel Ferdydurke prefigures Sartre, his narrative pyrotechnics forged as a theatrical dramatist and shaped to a Brancusi-like perfection of ideal form; Witold Gombrowicz remains among the great figures of European literature. His works are … Continue reading Witold Gombrowicz, on his birthday August 4
To each of us his own White Whale, to lift us beyond our limits in pursuit of the impossible; this gift has Herman Melville given us in his magnificent novel Moby Dick, written as an answer to the Book of Job. And yet more; fables which intertwine with our histories to magnify and … Continue reading Herman Melville, on his birthday August 1
In celebration of the author and her perplexing novel, which continues to provoke impassioned discourse and afright the horses. Emily Bronte saw herself as the Titan Prometheus, cast out of heaven like Milton’s rebel angel, and bearing the stolen fire of the gods. I have always seen in her a kindred spirit, and myself mirrored … Continue reading Emily Bronte, on her birthday July 30 2022 revision
From his stunning debut collection of short stories, 13 Stories and 13 Epitaphs, through his Great Books The Royal Family and Whores For Gloria, his subversive chronicles of American history including Argall: The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith, and his transgressive autobiography and world travel journal The Atlas, William T. Vollmann … Continue reading William T. Vollmann , on his birthday July 28 2025 revision
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 