By Chancellorsville, his camera had grown heavier, the straps of its leather case cutting into his shoulders, the sway of its brass and wood bruising his ribs. Among the war dead he had photographed, he lacked one, his sister, Ana, who had died two years earlier in a field hospital outside Fredericksburg. Fever, they’d said. By the time he found her name in a ledger, no body was left to claim.
Continue reading “Ana in the Negative by R W Owen”
In Which are recorded Arguments and Misunderstandings among Neighbors and Subjects in the Village of Gebsattel in Middle Franconia during my Tenure as Bailiff, and how the Same were Adjudicated and Settled, as well as Other Matters requiring Punishment in the Stocks.
Beginning in the Year of Our Lord Christ’s Birth,
Anno 1574.
Erhard Wolffhardt, Bailiff in Gebsattel
(Excerpts)
Continue reading “Manorial Roll by Ann Tlusty”
The moan of miller Beale’s crude bell is nearly swallowed by the third week of February cold. Gray stirs in his haybunk, clinging to Leith. There the marshlands stretch toward the North Sea, and Elspeth—his bride—walks the rain-dark fields beneath a graphite sky. Their daughters run in widening circles through the grass: Isobel serious beyond her years, Alisone all wild curls and laughter, and wee Violet stumbling after them, gap-toothed and breathless. Pregnant clouds drag their swollen white bellies across the Lowlands. The wind tastes of salt.
The bell tolls again.
Once.
Gray sits upright.
Continue reading “The Fields of Leith Christopher Kostyn Passante”
The cart creaks, pitches and yaws. A whip cracks up ahead. Four women sit on the floorboards, grey uniforms muddied. Sitting is not an act of mercy, they cannot stand without falling, their hands bound behind their backs. Ruth glances at the other women, but they are all within themselves, eyes unfocused. They have spent many hours together: on duty, in the mess, in the barracks, have shared laughter, secrets, tears. Now they are bloodied, bruised.
Continue reading “Ends by Matthew Roy Davey”
In 1601, James VI of Scotland (soon to be crowned James I of England) summoned Shakespeare’s company, The Lord Chancellor’s Men, to give performances of their plays in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. In Aberdeen at least, the visit seems to have been highly successful: on October 9th, the registers of the Town Council show that the company were awarded ‘the svme of threttie tua merkis’ and Laurence Fletcher, a shareholder in the company, was elected an honorary burgess of the town. It is not known for certain whether Shakespeare was with the company, but as a shareholder and owner of the company’s stage properties, it seems quite likely that he travelled North with the rest.
Continue reading “Shakespeare Meets the Macbeths by Michael Bloor”
I’m Angola Togo, a journalist. Recently, I listed influential people I would love to interview to better understand our history and the human condition.
This list included Queen Zenobia of Palmyra, Hammurabi, Hannibal, Budda, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Napoleon, Mahatma Gandhi, The Dalai Lama, Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali, Paul Roberson, Langston Hughes, Albert Einstein, Zora Neale Hurston, Jackie Robinson, James Baldwin, Nina Simon, Octavia Butler, Jimmy Carter, and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Continue reading “Angola Togo Conversations with Samuel Little and Jim Jones by Frederick K Foote”
May 1939
In the heart of Berlin, our family created and cultivated a magnificent bookstore—Wunderbar. Green and gold glazed tiles adorned the Art Deco exterior. Famous clientele such as Pablo Picasso, Josephine Baker, Sigmund Freud, Greta Garbo, Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, and Hannah Arendt crossed borders to spend time in our shop. Some exuberant patrons described Wunderbar as a divine pilgrimage.
Continue reading “Under the Stars by Rachel Prizant Kotok”
Yesterday I walked another bit of the South-West Coast Path, from Praa Sands round to Marazion. I was with a friend, who is aiming to complete the entire circuit of the path, from Minehead to Poole Harbour. He does bits of it as and when he can, and invites people to accompany him if they live locally, or are keen walkers, or just feel like doing it with him. This was a short section, only about six miles – well, short for him; about the right distance for me to walk comfortably.
Continue reading “White Horse by Kate Mole.”
A Word is Born
Human friction is often caused by a powerful negative response to something another person says is true. An exchange of loud exchanges of not listening to the other person occurs. You see it in bars all the time. Words spill from mouths, fists fill the temporarily emptied maws and loosened teeth are the innocent victims. Dentists prosper. Yet the situation is usually considered resolved.
Continue reading “Week 530: Tuncking; A Warning From Diane About More Corporate Slime Trails; Six Gems and Some High End Funny Bizness”
Back then, it wasn’t a fresh snowfall that blocked the Perth-Inverness train at the Drumochter Pass: rather, it was very, very strong winds that sprang up and blew lying snow off the mountains, quickly smothering the track. These days, the winter weather forecasting is so good that those Scottish train services thought to be at imminent risk of snow blockage are cancelled in advance. But it wasn’t the case twenty-odd years ago.
Continue reading “Warm Thoughts in the Drumochter Pass by Michael Bloor”
literally stories 