Sunday Morning! “The Red-Headed Pilgrim” by Kevin Maloney
Spending your twenties following your heart off cliffs and making many mistakes isn’t ideal, but nearly everyone does it. Hopefully.
Author: Rufus F.
Sunday Morning! “In a Lonely Place” Novel vs. Film
The Nicholas Ray/ Humphrey Bogart film In a Lonely Place changes so much from the Dorothy Hughes novel as to be a different, much more devastating, story.
Sunday Morning, 2023! “Chess Story” by Stefan Zweig
The first thing that strikes me about “Chess Story,” the last piece of fiction Zweig wrote, is how well-constructed it is
Christmas Morning! “The Tenants of Moonbloom” by Edward Lewis Wallant
A rollicking posthumous novel with a very Jewish punchline for its parable: Yes, everyone is kind of a schmuck. But we’re required to love them anyway. And isn’t that funny?
Sunday Morning! “The Door” by Magda Szabó
They always judge you. On Hungarian writer Magda Szabó’s haunting novel about a housekeeper who loves and persecutes her employer in equal measure.
Sunday Morning! “Tinkers” by Paul Harding
Taking time for Paul Harding’s Pulitzer winning first novel about a clock repairman and horologist for whom time is quickly running out.
Sunday Morning! “Rat Bohemia” by Sarah Schulman
This 1995 novel by Sarah Schulman is a good reminder of a time when people moved to cities like New York because they weren’t welcome at home.
Sunday Morning! “What is Art?” by Leo Tolstoy
We’re not all Christian anarchists like Leo Tolstoy, but he’s not exactly wrong about how art eases our sense of isolation.
Sunday Morning! Leonora Carrington, the Complete Stories
Like fairy tales for mad children, the stories of Leonora Carrington are as packed with strangeness and complete imaginative freedom as her paintings.
Sunday Morning! “The Monkey’s Wrench” by Primo Levi
Primo Levi is best remembered as one of the great novelists of the Holocaust; he was one of the few Italian Jews sent to Auschwitz who survived, and he wrote about it
Sunday Morning! Darrell Epp talks “On the Eve” by Ivan Turgenev
This week, we hear from poet and raconteur Darrell Epp about why he loves “On The Eve,” this playful classic about young love and commitment.
Sunday! “Assembling a Black Counter Culture” by DeForrest Brown Jr.
The rich and detailed story of “Assembling a Black Counter Culture” and how Detroit gave the world techno music and an alternative vision of the future to escape the exhausted white one.
Sunday Morning! “Longing Lasts Longer” by Penny Arcade
It’s not about “nostalgia” for a “lost time”… in her performances and stories, Penny Arcade talks about longing for a way of living life to the hilt.
Monday! (Sunday Part Two) “Music is Over!” by Ben Arzate
In an era of boring mass media, we need creative weirdness more than ever. “Music is Over!” gets weird. But weird is probably what we most need right now.
Sunday Morning! (Part One) Boredom and Bloat
Are the pundits right? Are we drowning in an ocean of boring art and culture? What I’m struck by (more than some vague “boredom”) is how narrow the focus of so much art has become
Sunday Morning! “Severance”
Finally, I write about a streaming series – I watched the streaming series “Severance,” a surreal depiction of four very likeable human rats in a very unstimulating corporate cage pushing buttons
Sunday Morning! Gord Lewis and “Teenage Head”
For a lot of Canadians, Gord Lewis played on the soundtrack of their youth. For me, he was the kind, quiet man in the bar with the radiant smile. All praise to the ones who showed us some kinda fun.
Sunday Morning! “Desperate Characters” by Paula Fox
Desperate Characters, a rediscovered classic about two people whose lives would be ideal, if they had any meaning.
Sunday Morning! “Pierre and Jean” by Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant’s classic novel is another in a long line of adulterous wife stories; but really, it’s about the deranging need to know.
Sunday Morning! “Salvage the Bones” by Jesmyn Ward
I wanted to write about Jesmyn Ward’s novel Salvage the Bones for a few reasons, including its recent challenge in North Carolina schools
