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ABOUTBlack Lamb was created to offer the discerning reader a stimulating selection of excellent original writing. Published monthly. (more) FREE SAMPLE COPYClick here to receive a free sample issue via U.S. mail. There is absolutely no obligation. SUBSCRIBESupport this independently published journal of fine essays. Annual subscriptions are $15 in the USA, $25 in Canada, $30 in the UK, or $35 elsewhere (all prices in US $). Click here to subscribe online via paypal or send a check to Black Lamb, 1759 View Drive, San Leandro CA 94577. QUESTIONSIf you have questions or comments regarding Black Lamb, please email us. |
This Week in Literary HistoryJanuary 1st, 2012 Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler (The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 1959) is born in 1931 in Montréal. Mordecai Richler, b. January 27, 1931, d. 2001
Suggested Reading Novels The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, 1959. Cocksure, 1968. The Street, 1969. St. Urbain’s Horseman, 1971. Joshua Then and Now, 1980. Travel Images of Spain, 1977. This Year in Jerusalem, 1994. Nonfiction On Snooker: The Game and the Characters Who Play It, 2001.
Posted by: The Editors This Month in Black LambVolume 10, Number 1January 1st, 2012 Ninth Anniversary Issue In our Ninth Anniversary Issue, editor Terry Ross ponders things he’s done for nine years in a row, and things he hasn’t. In California dreaming, Elizabeth Fournier rides a bike around San Francisco with a guy in spandex. Patsy Tompkins reflects on her forty years in New York City in Becoming a New Yorker. In Anniversary schmalz, Ed Goldberg goes round and round with the number nine.
Posted by: The Editors The anniversary schmalzJanuary 1st, 2012 BY ED GOLDBERG Number 9, Number 9, Number 9…. This is the ninth anniversary of the Black Lamb monthly, and congratulations to Terry Ross for his perseverance, and for reading and enjoying my brain droppings for these years. I have relished the soapbox for my views on everything from the moribund condition of the literary novel, to the state of pop music in twenty-first-century America, to why George Romero’s zombie movies transcend their own genre. I have received mostly positive comments, even from people who may disagree with me. Recently, Terry printed a dyspeptic rant from someone who found my politics to be, oh, bullshit, I guess. It was a great piece of verbal psychodrama and talking-point bile, and did nothing but reinforce everything I wrote. (Just to set the record straight, I do not own a bumper-sticker festooned Volvo, but a Ford hybrid with no stickers. Unlike, say, Sarah Palin, everything I believe can’t be reduced to a slogan. And, does he still deny that Rick Perry is a preening ass and moral leper? I am not a red, although there’s nothing wrong with that, but I am deeply pink. I also take pleasure in the fact that the writer lives in Berkeley, and every day for him must be a vista of hell. Nyuk nyuk nyuk.) Nine is a fraught number. In its printed form, it is not unlike a spermatozoa, or a stylized embryo. Human gestation lasts nine months. One is high on Cloud 9, or in the Ninth Circle of Dante’s Inferno. The pop geniuses Lieber and Stoller knew that the real-deal love potion was Number 9, and the literary lion Kurt Vonnegut made the apocalyptic substance that destroyed the earth Ice-nine. There used to be nine planets. (Sorry, Pluto.)
Posted by: The Editors Last Week in Literary HistoryJanuary 1st, 2012 English novelist Julian Barnes (Flaubert’s Parrot, 1984) is born in Leicester in 1946. Julian Barnes, b. January 19, 1946
Suggested Reading Novels Metroland, 1980. Flaubert’s Parrot, 1984. A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters, 1989. Talking It Over, 1991. England, England, 1998. Love, etc, 2000. Arthur & George, 2005. The Sense of an Ending, 2011. Memoir Nothing to Be Frightened Of, 2008.
Posted by: The Editors Last Month in Black LambVolume 9, Number 12 — December 2011December 1st, 2011 In the cover story of our December issue, Preaching to the choir, Terry Ross wonders why so many intelligent people refuse even to hear arguments they disagree with. Toby Tompkins in Rome finds medieval art saucily eloquent in Sacred profanity. In So sue me, Ed Goldberg lets fly on the CIA, lousy mayors, and Palestine. Lorentz Lossius describes Istanbul in the sixth installment of his Turkey journal. John M. Daniel recalls his days as a licensed minister in The Tennyson Street Church. In Sense of loss, Benjamin Feliciano wonders about his feelings about the loss of loved ones. Dan Peterson reveals the Most televised sport in Britain and Ireland: snooker. Robert Martin Stanley says that in Julian Barnes’s latest book, the reader is In good hands. We welcome two figures from world literature into our pantheon of Honorary Black Lambs and The Ultimate Literary Calendar for 2012: English satirist Samuel Butler and Irish literary novelist John Banville. Our monthly recipe is for Lamb Goulash au Blanc. Advice columnist Millicent Marshall answers more readers’ impertinent questions. And Professor Avram Khan gives us another challenging Black Lamb Word Puzzle.
Posted by: The Editors A sense of lossDecember 1st, 2011 BY BENJAMIN FELICIANO I feel as though the more time I go without writing the more I have to say. My articles are somewhat like letters to an old friend I am growing further apart from, and I could make excuses to explain why I have been without time but I think you and I have become familiar enough to avoid such pleasantries. I have lost a friend recently. His name was Ryan and I wrote an article about him several issues ago. Ryan’s absence has left a large hole in my life that I am without a substitute for. He was only a year or two older than me and was the third friend I made when I moved to Colorado two or so years ago. A few weeks back I found myself thinking about loss and how, statistically, there was a chance that someone I am close to could pass unexpectedly. This did not make it any easier to find out the news, but it made it seem obvious, as though I should have expected it. When my girlfriend and I broke up a month or so ago (yes, the one who I wrote about recently) I noticed something about myself that scared me; I could not feel anything. When she left I went through the motions of heartbreak but I realized that there was no pain. The numbness was reflected in everything I did: work was routine, life was repetitive, and writing was contrived. I took time to finish my book and upon completion found that I still felt detached.
Posted by: The Editors Two months ago in Black LambVolume 9, Number 11 — November 2011November 1st, 2011 In the cover story of our November issue, Lane Browning speaks with first-hand knowledge of the difficulties and rewards of raising an autistic child. In Gantzeh knacker, Ed Goldberg dissects the "big shot." John M. Daniel reflects on his experience in The facts of life. In What’s love got to do with it? Benjamin Feliciano wonders about his current relationship. Undertaker Elizabeth Fournier chronicles the history of American burials and names current alternatives, including mummification, in Ways of death. In Default architecture, Toby Tompkins reflects on ubiquitous scaffolding. Dan Peterson talks about two long-time popular Italian singers in Bel canto. We welcome three figures from world literature into our pantheon of Honorary Black Lambs and The Ultimate Literary Calendar 2012: Italian autobiographer Benvenuto Cellini, Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev, and French novelist Albert Camus. Bridge columnist Trixie Barkis presents two news hands to mull over. Our lamb recipe is for savory lamb skewers with sherry. Advice columnist Millicent Marshall answers more readers’ impertinent questions. And Professor Avram Khan gives us another challenging Black Lamb Word Puzzle.
Posted by: The Editors Living with autismAbove all, attention must be paid.November 1st, 2011 BY LANE BROWNING Well, the diagnosticians are working backwards. For years they’ve been giving autism screening tests to preschoolers, and this year came the big news of a “possible predictor” survey for one-year-olds. Babies. Eventually there will be prenatal tests and all the gnarly decisions those engender; but that’s a tale for another sailor. On my child’s first birthday no one was thinking about autism. We his exhausted parents were sitting in a hospital room thousands of miles from home, waiting during his five hours of microsurgery. He weighed twenty pounds. Neurological and cognitive development concerned us not a lick; our focus was on the ambitious tumors around his eyeball.
Posted by: The Editors October 2011 in Black LambVolume 9, Number 10 — October 2011October 1st, 2011 The All-Family Issue In the cover story of our All-Family Issue, Terry Ross examines the strength — and fragility — of family ties. In Family unfriendly, Greg Roberts wishes he lived in a more child-centered neighborhood. John M. Daniel remembers taking his kids to Disneyland in Magical kingdom. Cervine Kauffman takes issue with the reverence for and misuse of the word “family” in American life. Lane Browning reveals her family's favorite group activity in Logophilia. In Reunion, Toby Tompkins is pleasantly surprised at perhaps the last reunion of his extended family. In Blood is ickier than water, Ed Goldberg says it would be great if all the strands of his disconnected family could be woven together again, even temporarily. In Souvenirs, Elizabeth Fournier describes how saving loved ones’ body parts can be a form of fond remembrance. Dan Peterson recalls family members he looked up to in Heroes. We welcome two figures from world literature into our pantheon of Honorary Black Lambs and The Ultimate Literary Calendar for 2012: French encyclopedist Denis Diderot and American lexicographer Noah Webster. Bridge columnist Trixie Barkis poses a problem. Our lamb recipe is for a delicious Greek lamb loaf. Advice columnist Millicent Marshall answers readers’ questions. And Professor Avram Khan gives us another challenging Black Lamb Word Puzzle.
Posted by: The Editors Family unfriendlyA neighborhood without kids isn't normal.October 1st, 2011 BY GREG ROBERTS
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