Mulberry Street, New York City, 1888. Photo by Jacob Riis.
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TIMES SQUARE
1971 — about a year before I moved to New York.
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CURRENTS
You dash about, struggle — all because you want to swim in your own current. But alongside of you, unceasing and near to everyone, there flows the divine and infinite current of love, in one and the same course. When you are thoroughly exhausted in your attempts to do something for yourself, to save yourself, to secure yourself, then drop all your own course, throw yourself into that current; and it will carry you, and you will feel that there are no barriers, that you are at peace forever and free and blessed.
— Leo Tolstoy
LIKE A ROLLING STONE
Is this the greatest rock and roll song of all time? Or is it “Satisfaction”? Or is it “She Loves You”? Or is it “Shake, Rattle and Roll”? Or is it just whichever one you happen to be listening to at any given moment in time?
AN EDMUND BLAIR LEIGHTON FOR TODAY
Duty, 1883 — for Edward Snowden.
LOVE WITHOUT END, AMEN
This made me cry — and I don’t care if the NSA knows it.
With thanks to Sean Daniel . . .
BLOOMSDAY
A SEA OF DREAMS
Most of my best memories of my dad are connected with the sea, especially the sea off the coast of North Carolina. Here he is with my mom, my sister Lee and me, once upon a time.
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CURVE
The smell of the Evinrude
Gasoline and oil
The curve of the open wooden boat
The high prow
As his father and his father’s friends
Launch it into the surf
Timing the waves to crest them
And they will return with tales
Of the ocean beyond the surf
And fish packed in ice boxes
Which will not quite explain
The beauty of the curve
Of that prow riding the curves
Of those waves, out to open sea
AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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MORE JESUS
Do you need more Jesus? Sign up for an app that will deliver a new personal message daily from the Nazarene Carpenter directly to the portable Apple device of your choice. It’s all new material, too — no recycled stuff from the Bible:
This Jesus has a wig you can believe in! He addresses you from the clouds! It’s stupendous — it’s supernal!
MEANWHILE IN HONG KONG
A HOWARD TERPNING FOR TODAY
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On Amazon for the Kindle and for free Kindle reading apps that work on almost all computers and portable devices.
The year is 1849. A feisty young whore in New Orleans decides to light out for the goldfields of California and gets the bright idea of buying a slave, a sullen man seething with rage but infinitely resourceful and a crack shot, to help her make the overland journey. Neither of them can imagine the epic adventure that lies before them, the dangers, the magnificence, the heroism and the unlikely bond, stronger that any slaver’s chains, that will come to unite them. This is a Western tale, an American tale — a voyage into the wild and troubled heart of the American dream.
Missouri Green — a short novel, only $1.99.
LIBERTY
. . . is not negotiable. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America cannot be suspended by the ruling of any court or by the executive order of any President, however much you love the taste of his ass when you lick it.
These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.
— Thomas Paine, 1776
AN LP COVER FOR TODAY
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