When you look at apartment websites, you are always greeted with pictures of immaculate living rooms right out of “Good Housekeeping,” smiling middle-class families, sparkling swimming pools and accolades such as “exquisite apartment homes.” But beneath this carefully crafted veneer lies a different reality documented in reviews by actual Alabama tenants. Because Alabama law favors […]
Whittling
R was showing me this hunk of wood he preserved from a tree that fell. He wants to make an anvil out of it. With what’s left over, he was hoping to carve a Wind God. As bicyclists, the Wind God is ever present, a source misery and a source of delight. In my case, […]
Guntersville, Alabama: Eugene Debs, Sweet Tea and the Quest for Cheap Housing
The first time I saw an unfurled and flown Confederate flag in Alabama was about four years ago on my first trip to Guntersville. In a small squatter trailer camp nestled in a field off Route 431 , the main drag linking northeast Alabama to points south, was a large weather–beaten Stars and Bars draped […]
Ira Berlin: In Memorium
Ira Berlin, a great historian of slavery, died a few days ago. The following tribute to him is by Patrick Rael, a former student of Berlin’s and no mean historian himself. It does honor to Berlin, to Patrick, and to the study of history, which is, as Malcolm X said, of all subjects the one […]
A Galopar
A musical performance from Cadiz, Spain. English translation: Go riding The land, the land, the land of Spain The large, single, deserted plains Gallop, alabaster hoofed steed Rider of the people To the sun and moon Gallop! Gallop! Until you bury them in the sea! Down to the heart they sound, resound The land of […]
Larry Kirwan on the magic of seeing Bob Dylan live for the first time
I might never have become a musician if I hadn’t heard Like A Rolling Stone. That groundbreaking single sent me helter-skeltering out of womb-like Wexford and into the maelstrom of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I never met Dylan, though we briefly shared the same manager. However, one hungover snowy morning in Tribeca I overheard his […]