Henry Taylor: A Quaker Poet Departs — A Holiday Read

Late  one spring morning in 1986, I was creeping along the edge of Ox Road, Virginia route 123, driving with one hand, and shoving mail into the boxes on posts with the other.  I was a substitute rural mail carrier,  working a route just south of the seemingly nonexistent town of Fairfax Station.

FairfaxStation-VA-Sign

Beyond the mailboxes, prefab McMansions were going up on every side, as fast as the builders could hammer them together.

It was the second year of Ronald Reagan’s second term, and the woods along Ox Road were swarming with smalltime winners in the stampede for the billions  that the Gipper and his cronies were shoveling into a grand military buildup. The new settlers were devouring the woods along Ox Road like nuclear powered termites. Their contract profits were  pouring with the concrete under the rows of McMansions, markers of their status as suburban arrivistes.

My Malibu wagon, for postal work. (I didn’t wear a tie delivering the mail.)

Reagan’s frantic rearmament was meant to drive the Evil Empire of Communist Russia into bankruptcy and oblivion trying to match it.

The bankruptcy drive was ultimately successful, but the big plan soon capsized like the Titanic after the iceberg, sunk by the unexpected vigor of the aftermath:  who could have suspected that the Commies’ dark oblivion would turn out to be a den full of new monsters?

Continue reading Henry Taylor: A Quaker Poet Departs — A Holiday Read

Maybe There’s Hope: Simon & Garfunkel Are Friends Again . . .

Maybe—

This wasn’t written on the subway walls, or some tenement halls;
It isn’t a mashup of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Or the boxer, humming ly-la-lye while homeward bound.
But maybe . . . it could turn out to be a Bridge Over Troubled Waters . . .

The Guardian:

‘I was a fool’: Art Garfunkel describes tearful reunion with Paul Simon

Singer describes recent meeting where Simon said he was offended by an old interview, and pair reconciled

Maybe a break in the silence?

Art Garfunkel has described a recent tearful reunion with Paul Simon, in which the pair moved past old enmities.

Speaking to the Times, Garfunkel said: “I actually had lunch with Paul a couple of weeks back. First time we’d been together in many years. I looked at Paul and said, ‘What happened? Why haven’t we seen each other?’ Paul mentioned an old interview where I said some stuff. I cried when he told me how much I had hurt him. Looking back, I guess I wanted to shake up the nice guy image of Simon & Garfunkel. Y’know what? I was a fool!

“We’ve made plans to meet again. Will Paul bring his guitar? Who knows. For me, it was about wanting to make amends before it’s too late. It felt like we were back in a wonderful place. As I think about it now, tears are rolling down my cheeks. I can still feel his hug.”

Continue reading Maybe There’s Hope: Simon & Garfunkel Are Friends Again . . .

New Issue of a Quaker Arts Journal — Now Online

Can art help us get through (and bear witness in) hard times? 

The Fellowship of Quakers in the Arts (aka FQA) thinks so. A new example is the just-published issue of FQA’s journal, Types & Shadows, (aka T&S) online right now, right here.

T&S was launched in 1996, the new issue is #101, for Autumn 2024. In its pages you’ll find stunning color photography, striking poetry, a historical Quaker novel excerpt and arts reporting.

For a long time, Friends shunned the arts (more on this here, in FQA‘s free online pamphlet Beyond Uneasy Tolerance ).
But today the arts seem to be thriving among us.

This is always good news. (An archive of earlier T&S issues back into the 1990s is here.)  But it could be even better in hard times. In 2017, FQA sponsored a project, “The Art of Fearlessness,”  as a response in a similarly turbulent period. Continue reading New Issue of a Quaker Arts Journal — Now Online

How Pizza, Porn & Public Executions Made Good Politics in North Carolina

Every Democrat who won a state-level race in North Carolina this week ought to be tossing  at least a fiver into a common hat.

Then that wad of bills should be plunked down at Greensboro’s greasiest pizza parlor, to have at several dozen steamy pies delivered to the front porch of Chez Mark Robinson, topped by an oversize “Thank You” card. On it will be a PS hinting broadly that Robinson should consider making a second run at the state house in 2028.

That’s a helluva lot of pepperoni, but the social media posts unearthed in the campaign indicate that Robinson could handle it, especially if he resumes his particularly spicy diversions to fill his impending surplus of free time. Continue reading How Pizza, Porn & Public Executions Made Good Politics in North Carolina