I wandered into the Chicago Cultural Center yesterday and found magic.
That’s usually what happens to me at the Cultural Center. Yesterday, magic took the form of the Dance-Along Nutcracker, which drew aspiring ballet dancers of all ages to don leotards and tutus and dance together to selections from The Nutcracker (and The Grinch) played by the Lakeside Pride Symphonic Band. I’d never heard of this event, but the sweetness of it literally had me near tears. Continue reading
Which, apparently, is to say I need a poetry challenge. Because I most definitely cannot get enough of these wedding llamas and alpacas.
May is Mental Health Month and a good time to look for new ways to revitalize ourselves. Or just be mindful to make use of the old ways. As good a time as any, is what I really mean; this shouldn’t be a once-a-year special occasion.
Still, we all get caught up in the day-to-day and forget sometimes (many times) to nurture our souls. Continue reading
“The story of the Negro in America is the story of America. It is not a pretty story.”
-James Baldwin
Photo by Allan Warren (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL, via Wikimedia Commons
Over at Escape Into Life, I have a new “Accidental Critic” review posted, reflecting on the film “I Am Not Your Negro.” Now playing in downtown Chicago and coming in May to Oak Park (for one day only), “I Am Not Your Negro” is based on author James Baldwin’s notes for an unfinished project in which he planned to examine the slayings of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. – all friends of his. Continue reading
I’m no poet, but a reader of both poetry and the news. Sometimes they don’t seem so far apart. Here, a found poem, based on excerpts from original reporting in The New York Times and Chicago Tribune. Continue reading
"April is the cruellest month, ..."
Nearly every year on April 1, I re-read T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land.” It’s one of my favorite poems, and while I pay homage to it by quoting and requoting lines from it in conversation year-round, I also like to sit down and read it through periodically. The opening line, quoted above, is of course why I choose April 1 for this pleasure. (Also, April is National Poetry Month, so there’s another reason, though not the one that drives me.)