During college and for a couple years after, I worked at a Manhattan restaurant as a valet car parker. There is not a lot of valet car parking in Manhattan, but they had it at the Water Club, where we dubbed ourselves “New York’s First Valet Corps,” in no small part because there weren’t many/any […]
Archives for March 2024
William Carlos Williams: Poet of the Left
“A labor revolution by a society seeking to be in fact classless”, declared the poet William Carlos Williams in 1936, “is both great and traditionally American in its appeal” (SL 115). Often presented by literary critics as a liberal with paternalistic instincts towards the working poor, Williams was in fact one of the most exuberantly […]
Berlin as a Community Space vs. Berlin as a Business: A Discussion with Jolene Saint
Late last year, Chicago’s beloved queer nightspot Berlin closed its doors amid a controversial union drive. I was first drawn to this editorial in the Chicago Tribune by a prominent photo of my friend Marten Katze looking characteristically cool as hell. (See: above.) Dismayed to find, however, that this powerful image image was appended to […]
On Political Repression: A Hard Crackers Discussion with Michael Deutsch
Michael Deutsch is an experienced human rights attorney in the U.S., perhaps one of the most veteran and well-informed lawyers at that extremely difficult craft in this country. Michael graciously allowed us at Hard Crackers to pick his brains and share some of his experiences with us. To give you some idea of Michael’s journey […]