This Month's Articles
ESSAY
Thinking about The Balfour Declaration, and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
An essay by Jane M. McCabe
For the enormous influence it has had on the world, the Balfour Declaration is a remarkably short and concise document. As pointed out in a recent book by Jonathan Schneer, The Balfour Declaration, and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, the Balfour Declaration was crafted by Arthur James Balfour, Foreign Secretary to the British government when Lloyd George was Prime Minister. It is dated November 2nd, 1917, and was a formal statement of policy by the British government stating that:
"His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in.....Read More
Art Beat
Art Cart
As mentioned in the June issue, the Art Cart is up and running! The mobile gallery will premiere on September 25th at the Fourth Street Block Festival and will be traveling about the East and West Village from then on. The theme of the first exhibit is “Neon Seduction,” and features photographs by Erin Wahed. The work is intended to challenge our concept of “real” and allow us to embrace the beauty and depth of the entirely artificial, by showcasing work created in virtual spaces. Appreciating contemporary art doesn’t get much easier than this, and as such, this is without a doubt a must-see, must-do, and must-follow.....Read More
REVIEWING
The Doctor and the Diva
by Adrienne McDonnell
Pamela Dorman Books (Viking) | 432pp.
Reviewed by Janet Garber
There have always been women, even dating back to 1903, who have aspired to “Have It All”: husband, children and career. And not just any old husband, child or career would do. They want a Rich and Handsome Spouse, an Adaptable, preferably Stowable Child, and an Internationally Acclaimed Career on the their wish lists. Finding a balance between work and family? Ah, who had time to think about that?
Erika von Kessler, our story’s ravishing heroine, is married to a hunk named Peter, who’s rich from trading textiles internationally, sexy and fit (with a cute butt, we’re told), and extremely adventurous. He gives her everything he thinks she should have, a lovely townhouse in Boston, a lively social life, and gorgeous gowns.....Read More
ESSAY
The Immigration Debate: Where are the Eggheads?
An essay by Fred Beauford
What surprised me most when I decided to write this essay was after I queried publishers across the country if they had any recent books on the Immigration debate, most of them had little to offer. Apparently, as far as they were concerned, there was no real debate worth the resources necessary to publish a book on the subject.
Maybe this has something to do with location. Most publishing is located in New York, or in large educational institutions. In New York City, for example, I rarely hear the subject of immigration discussed. However, all I have to do is take a train or plane out west, where I have spent so much of my life, and immigration is a subject that quickly touches raw nerves, and drives people into.....Read More
REVIEWING
The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts, and Letters
by Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar (Editor)
Johns Hopkins University Press | 2010
Reviewed by Sarah Vogelsong
The Harlem Renaissance has always been an appealing moment in American history, but never more so than in times of economic hardship, when little distraction from uncertainty and dull necessity seem to exist. In a period of contraction and austerity, any flowering of culture serves as a powerful reaffirmation of a society’s value and provides something to counteract the apparent meaninglessness of the daily struggle.
In light of the current recession, Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar’s recent collection of scholarship, The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts, and Letters, is well timed. One essay in particular, Back to Harlem: Abstract and Everyday Labor during the Harlem Renaissance, by Jacob S. Dorman, strikes a chord in the attention it devotes to “the masses of people who lined [Harlem’s] streets”—the majority of whom faced.....Read More
Writers World
The Writer’s World
Notes on Writers’ Retreats
A column by Molly Moynahan
“Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.”
Ernest Hemingway
Writing is an isolating process. This column is.....Read More
REVEWING
The Supremes:
A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success, and Betrayal
by Mark Ribowsky
Reviewed by Loretta H. Campbell
The Motownettes
Soft porn and scholarship just might not be a good combination. At least that was my impression while reading this unauthorized biography of the phenomenal Supremes by Mark Ribowsky, author of He's a Rebel: Phil Spector, Rock and Roll's Legendary Producer.
One suggestion to the reader is to ignore the masturbatory adjectives about extra- marital, quasi-marital, and interracial sex replete in this book. It’s not clear whether the mention of possible prostitutes or possible pimps is meant to be funny. Suffice it to say, all of these activities and occupations are mentioned numerous times in this work. Frankly, these 50-year-gone couplings and un-couplings are.....Read More
MEMOIR
...and Mistakes Made Along the Way An excerpt from a memoir
by Fred Beauford
Chapter Eight — My Return to the Bronx
I didn’t make much of a soldier. In fact, I hated being in the army. I think I broke some kind of record at my base in Germany as the longest ranking private in its history. It was only after I had three months to go that they finally gave me my first stripe. By that time, Elvis already had three.
In regards to race, I never saw that as much of a problem, even though for most of the time that I was in Germany, I was the only black in the Third platoon; and there was only one other black in the entire company except for two non-cons. Most blacks, I couldn’t help but note at.....Read More
REVIEWING
What About Darwin? : All Species of Opinion from Scientists, Sages, Friends, and Enemies Who Met, Read, and Discussed the Naturalist Who Changed the World [Kindle Edition
by Thomas F. Glick
Reviewed by Ken Liebeskind
What About Darwin? is a compendium of writings about Charles Darwin collected and annotated by Thomas F. Glick, a history professor at Boston University who has already published three books on Darwin. There are 442 entries here, from a vast array of individuals including clerics, politicians, novelists, poets, musicians.
The fact that there is such a wide array of opinions proves that Darwin’s The Origin of Species, the work that lay the groundwork for the theory of evolution, is all.....Read More
REVIEWING
Tradition and the Black Atlantic—Critical Theory in the African Diaspora
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Reviewed by Herb Boyd
Within the confines of African American literary theory, Dr. Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr. is practically peerless. It’s when the Harvard professor ventures from these precincts that his authority weakens; his expertise turns less formidable. A good example of this diminution occurred earlier this year when he authored an op-ed piece in the New York Times that set off a chain of reaction from mainly black public intellectuals and activists who felt he had done the reparations movement a gross disservice in his contention that African chiefs and rulers were complicit in the European transatlantic slave.....Read More