Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at 200
Ted Olson in The Conversation: In early 1824, 30 members of Vienna’s music community sent a letter to Ludwig van Beethoven petitioning the great composer to reconsider his plans to
Monday Poem: Ghazal For Grandmother
My grandmother kept a suitcase, hard & roundedlike a deep pink shell. I used to finger its rounded edges & compare them to her deft, valleyed hands.Wind-chapped skin crinkled like
Breaking Free from the Cultural Neurosis
By Dr. Alexander Lowen at Poetic Outlaws: We want to be more alive and feel more, but we are afraid of it. Our fear of life is seen in the
The Kennedys And The Women They Destroyed
Louis Bayard at The NY Times: In the opening sentence of her rage-swollen “Ask Not,” Maureen Callahan declares that her book “is not ideological or partisan.” It is, of course,
Majority Without a Mandate
Richard Seymour in Sidecar: Was ever a country, in this humour, won? A majority without a mandate, and a landslide that isn’t a landslide. Labour won 64% of the seats
Murder in Hollywood
In 1973, Cynthia Bouron, a notorious Hollywood hanger-on who alleged that Cary Grant fathered her child, was found dead. Why has the case remained unsolved? By Hadley Meares at Air
Does Embracing Local Customs Help Immigrants Feel at Home?
by Ljiljana Radenović at Psyche: On 28 August 1999, I landed in Toronto, Canada, from Belgrade and the war-torn Yugoslavia. I came for graduate studies in philosophy but was eager
Continue readingDoes Embracing Local Customs Help Immigrants Feel at Home?
Sunday Poem: Great Expectations
If I give you lovewhat will I get in return?will it be acknowledged?or will it be but spurned?If I offer my lovewill you be mine forever?or will you laugh at
The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah
Fitzroy Morrissey at Literary Review: Shortly before his death in 1974, R C Zaehner, Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics at Oxford, observed that young Westerners who had turned
Continue readingThe Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah
Preikestolen (The Pulpit Rock)
Habib Khan, Quetta: When I was still working (or at least dragging my feet to the workplace), a picture during a training session caught my attention. It showed a rectangular
Julian Assange is Finally Free – But Should Not Have Been Prosecuted in the First Place
Ken Roth in The Guardian: Julian Assange’s lengthy detention has finally ended, but the danger that his prosecution poses to the rights of journalists remains. As is widely known, the US
A Wife’s Revenge from Beyond the Grave
From The Free Press: In October of last year, Free Press reporter Francesca Block came across a fascinating tip in her inbox. It told the story of Allan Kassenoff and