Category Archives: Uncategorized
Forgetting the Names of Things
“I knew these plants better now than I ever did back in those botanical days of looking things up and labeling them. I know them as friends, as members of my community, as fellow inhabitants of the good green places I’ve now inhabited for so many years. How many springs had Gail and I pointed […]
“De Aanslag” (The Assault)
“These evocative images only sharpen a set of questions of which their photographers seemed oblivious. If the medic was sensitive enough to capture the soul of an elderly fisherman, how could he not see in that man’s eyes a hint that the army he was part of had just captured a nation? How could someone who took […]
Striking While the Irony Is Hot: Reversals
“Finally, irony is fun . . . as when Jack Nicholson says his mother never appreciated the irony of calling him ‘a son of a bitch.’ In one fell swoop, Nicholson winks at his mother without extending his middle finger or his tongue. (The fun becomes even more complicated when you learn that the woman […]
The Poetry of Eugene Platt
“As she sips her cold beer, I my Irish,/ sweet Keats lies asleep peacefully nearby/ on a favorite tartan-covered chair,/oblivious of coronavirus./In previous incarnations, this cat/likely lived through countless outbreaks of these,/if not of one disease, then another./Truly, there’s nothing new under the sun.”—Eugene Platt Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—1 August […]
No may. No might. Only is.
“As I have been reporting for a few years in this space, anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases have led to abrupt, irreversible climate change. We’ve been warned about this outcome for decades. As ancient Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu reportedly said, ‘If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.’ We did not change […]
The Poet’s Petard # 1
“I began collecting bits and pieces of other people’s writings at an early age. I still have some of these yellowed pieces of paper with my original savings. Eventually, I got officious about it and began to type them up and paste them into a loose-leaf notebook. In earlier centuries, they used to call these […]
The Walnut Heist
“Mark Rober is astonishingly good at 1) engineering, 2) fabrication, and 3) story-telling—a rare trifecta of talents, to be sure. Squirrels, on the other hand. . . .”—Tim Bayer Won Over By Reality By Tim Bayer FAIRPORT New York—(Weekly Hubris)—1 August 2021—Mark Rober is astonishingly good at 1) engineering, 2) fabrication, and 3) story-telling—a rare […]
Her Landscapes: New Poems
“The slow expansion of the crack in the ancient Rift Valley will tear away the Afar desert and the horn of Africa from the rest of the continent. That alone doesn’t make an ocean but it gives us pause as we navigate the traffic of our lives, trying to imagine right behind our house a […]
The Poetry of Yvette R. Murray
“When/Gullah/Geechee folk/meet at the sto’/they speak about how/to cook stone ground grits right./That 2:1 ratio./Instant is like the biblical/abomination. That ratio/reveals itself in refined spaces too/like/cheer squads . . . .”— Yvettte Murray Speculative Friction By Claire Bateman GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—1 July 2021—Poet Yvette R. Murray received her BA in English from Duquesne University […]
What Sorry Beef Fondue, Huh!
“I finally came face-to-face (mouth-to-ear) with the severity of my handicap a couple weeks ago while standing at the register at Whole foods. Through her mask, the plexi-shield, and the roar of shoppers overpaying for broccoli, the cashier asked if I’d ever sampled the beef fondue in Outer Mongolia. I offhandedly remarked that I had […]