You can read Part I of Nanette's memoir of growing up in 1950s San Francisco here. I begin to make a habit of snuggling down behind the Shoji screen with a "Minka." I hold my breath when my mother comes looking for me to help with the … [Read more...]
Sleevelessness
My mom’s job is to sit on a stool in our basement. Thatʼs where her art studio is. She has a drawing table there that has a square leaned-up top and ink stains all around the edges. When she’s not making her own art, my mom draws fashion illustration … [Read more...]
On Painting On
“Why are the paintings going away?” Mommy explains: ”Your dad is having a very important one-man show at a big fancy gallery across from The San Francisco Opera House. We're going to get all dressed up and attend the opening.” I get to go and not … [Read more...]
Loving and Hating Charles Bukowski by Linda King (2nd Edition)
Wild Ocean Press, in collaboration with KissKill Press, is pleased to publish a second edition of Loving & Hating Charles Bukowski, completely edited and revised from an earlier version published in 2012. The press release: There are many books … [Read more...]
London 1966: I.T., the Camel, and a Song Named Me
The camel’s unexpected appearance saved me. The raggedy texture of his fur, his massiveness, and his breath were all undeniably real, no matter how bizarre the setting and cast of characters. Snaking black power cords connecting reporters to brilliant … [Read more...]
Catskill Bill: A Portrait of a Fisherman
The Catskill region is a lonely place. Maybe it wasn’t in its borscht belt heyday when young Jewish New Yorkers spent their summers in the big hotels with the hope of meeting a future husband or wife. And many did. The stories are legion. But when I first … [Read more...]
When the Moon is in the Seventh House
My beat up Renault pulled into the short dirt driveway of my small cape style house in Lyme, New Hampshire that March of 1970. The 60’s were over. Bob Dylan had left New York City too for the country upstate in Woodstock and I was doing the same here in … [Read more...]
Hammond Guthrie’s AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor
AsEverWas: Memoirs of a Beat Survivor by Hammond Guthrie / 2nd edition / Jorvik Press / 978-0988412231 / paperback, 296 pages The publisher provided Empty Mirror with a review copy. When the counterculture was busy being born in Los Angeles and San … [Read more...]
Book Review – What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life by Gary Soto
What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life / Gary Soto / Sasquatch Books / 978-1570618741 / 208 pages What Poets Are Like: Up and Down with the Writing Life collects sixty short essays by Gary Soto. Soto is an acclaimed American poet, as … [Read more...]
Book Review – Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison, by Judy Huddleston
Love Him Madly: An Intimate Memoir of Jim Morrison, by Judy Huddleston / Chicago Review Press / June 1, 2013 / 978-1613747506 / 240 pages The story begins just like many young girls' rock star fantasies do. Judy, a high-school senior, and soon-to-be … [Read more...]
The Wounded
After the end of the last really big war, WWII, where something like sixty million people died, America had a very nice stretch of about twenty years. We were on top of the world, didn’t need to rebuild bombed-out cities, needed only to go forward into … [Read more...]
Ma’s Face
I was in the first grade with the purple-faced Mrs. Reagan when my mother had the first operation on her face to remove a tumor. This wasn’t the one that took the facial nerve; that came later. Still, it was difficult for a little boy to see his mother’s … [Read more...]
Book Review – Horse Latitudes by Chris Wilson
Horse Latitudes by Chris Wilson / Sorika / 978-0957557307 / 92 pages Horse Latitudes is a small gem of a book, bound in white covers illustrated with a painting. It is strikingly beautiful, with a very clean, minimalist design. But much of its … [Read more...]
Book Review – Son of Kerouac, Woodstock and God: A Memoir by James Crockett
Son of Kerouac, Woodstock and God / James Crockett / 978-148125581 / 261 pages Empty Mirror received a review copy of this book. As a young man about to embark upon a summer-long hitchhiking trip through the western United States in the mid-1970s, … [Read more...]
Pelham Bay Wilding 1957
“Have you ever been in combat, Ricker?” my spiritual advisor asked. Pelham Bay Wilding The Molotov cocktail burst against the wall shocking the quiet, suburban night with flames fifty feet high. The bricks of the old gothic school scattered the gas … [Read more...]