Neeta and Neil
Neeta Shenai took my Social Justice class at SLU in fall 2005; Neil Munjal did the same in fall 2006. It has been a great pleasure to stay in touch with them as they have…
Author: Mark J. Chmiel
Walt, Various
1. I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.–Walt Whitman 2. In 1968 Susan Sontag visited Hanoi for two weeks. In her account of her experiences, she seemed a bit surprised the…
Share the Wealth with Emma Prince and Laura Weis: The Joys of Archivists
Emma, a certified archivist, founded Backlog after losing a university archives job early on in the pandemic. Before founding Backlog, she applied to 500+ jobs tangentially related to library science. Not ready to leave archives, she founded Backlog to…
Letter/1522
Robert Henri Makes me think of you! You’re a book-openerA soul-opener A seerAn enlightener A listenerA dare-angel A possibility-generatorA disturber of the official line An embodiment of the operative lineOf Love first Thank you for…
¡Presente!
Remembering Rosemary Radford Ruether, with whom I was in Palestine in spring 1990 and who supported my first book in 2001… She was one of the greats. She embodied sempre avanti. She had a deep…
Today’s Gratitude
A yogini-friend asked me to study Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras with her. And so we shall…
DJs
Dear Zosia, I was playing some Dylan a while ago as I was trying to get my study in some semblance of order. Then I picked his Chronicles off the shelf and opened to the section when…
Morning on the Central Park Lake by Alex Gaynor
Amidst the thunder of the pulsing city, here is a refuge The lake like glass, caressed by the kiss of the gentle breeze Robins chatter above and around, playfully inviting others to this sacred space …
Our Cup Runneth Over
Sunday night 8 May 2022 Dear Mona, I thought I was done sending you poetry after that April Poetry Month binge. But I can’t resist! The following is from Robert Di Yanni’s book, You Are…
So, Which Is It?
My friend Andrew Wimmer texted me the following two lines… [Paul] Street’s dementia: “the Kremlin [is] in the grip of a megalomaniacal neofascist…” Stephen F. Cohen on accusations of fascism leveled against Putin: “absurd.” Street…