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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. |
Archive for June, 2003The artist as a young pigJune 1st, 2003
In just a few days I’ll have finally finished a quest I began forty-five years ago. A package from amazon.com will arrive bearing The Collected Poems of Freddy the Pig, and a couple of hours later I will have finally read every single volume in Walter R. Brooks’ classic children’s series of Freddy books. The majority of the twenty-six titles in the series listed on the back of Freddy and Mr. Camphor, a birthday gift from my grandmother, and the first volume in the series I actually owned, have check marks next to them made by the same ballpoint pen, ticked off within a year of that book’s arrival, when I attempted to tally which volumes in the series I had managed find and read. There are a few more checks added later, in a busy time of tracking down titles, but a few still remain blank: The Collected Poems and a handful of others I have purchased during the last two years. One of them, The Story of Freginald, which arrived a couple of weeks ago, was the very last of the Freddy stories (collected poems are in a different category) that had evaded my attention. The splendid reissue of the series by Overlook Press, which has been proceeding slowly but steadily with several releases each year, is at last on the verge of completion.
Posted by: The Editors God in an awful moodJune 1st, 2003 BY GENE RYDER I’d like a head count of how many people get slaughtered in the Old Testament. It has to be in the millions, or gazillions, maybe even infinity plus one. It’s really a murder fest, and if you go there searching for comfort, as I did here recently in a time of need, then what you’re liable to find is a lot of locusts, leprosy, Sodomites, stories like the heartbreaking binding of Isaac, God just seems to be in an awful mood in the Old Testament, and I’m not sure that I blame Him. I mean, He’s given everybody the great gift of life, and love, and this beautiful blue ball of a world, and yet look what they were doing at the time with that gift.
Posted by: The Editors Trash and meJune 1st, 2003 BY REBECCA OWEN In junior high I knew what I was supposed enjoy reading. I knew it depended on perspective and so I read it all and liked nearly everything that I read for one reason or another. I read the short books assigned at school, the longer and stranger things suggested by helpful teachers, the fun and unexpected things suggested by our odd collection of neighbors, the books we had to read because they were so great, according to friends, the great lit one sister foisted on me and the trash from under the bed of another. On my own I read my parents’ library, which was a mix of Book of the Month Club, military history, nature writing, and travelogues, with an occasional serious work slipped in. I read cookbooks and Gourmet from the time I was in grade school. This describes what I read today, more or less, although the trash I like now is more in the line of murder mystery than the Harold Robbins/Jacqueline Susan stuff favored by my sister. And the Book of the Month club has been replaced by the award lists.
Posted by: The Editors A turn for the verseJune 1st, 2003 BY GILLIAN WILCE I have been doing anything rather than write this piece. The task of writing about an influential book ought to be a delight. And yet I have done the ironing, I have read a crime novel (by Ian Rankin — very enjoyable, but not a candidate), I can’t think of a single book that changed my life in an obvious way (except perhaps a psychology textbook, which led me to Jung, which led me to psychoanalysis, which led me to … – but that is another story, one which would probably have unfurled anyway from some beginning or other). On the other hand, I can’t imagine what a life without books would have been like. They are part of my fabric, just as they are of the fabric of this city.
Posted by: The Editors Hope for the indolentJune 1st, 2003
The book was a birthday gift from a friend, as I recall, and I believe it had been intended as a joke. The Lazy Man’s Guide To Enlightenment by Thaddeus Golas was a narrow and very thin paperback, and I’m sure I shrugged it off at the time with a “Thanks, I really need this,” stated with self-deprecating irony but with no idea of just how potent this little book really was.
Posted by: The Editors Books aren’t life, but then what is?June 1st, 2003 BY ED GOLDBERG What books changed my life? The Three Little Kittens, which is the first book I learned to read by myself. I’ve never been the same.
Posted by: The Editors A story of languageJune 1st, 2003
One of my fondest childhood memories is the every-Sunday excursion with my father to the Cobbs Creek branch of the Philadelphia Public Library. Dad was an appliance salesman for a small independent store, these days a vanished institution done in by suburban malls and national chains. His job required him to work miserably long hours, and well into my childhood he would arrive home only shortly before my bedtime. Sunday was the only day I got to spend any real time with him, so I especially cherished our weekly library ritual.
Posted by: The Editors Honorary Black LambsJune 1st, 2003 BY BLACK LAMB
Another poet, one of a different sort, adorns June, and that’s the late Allen Ginsberg, born on the 3rd in 1926. And a great master came on the scene, in Russia, on the 6th, in 1799, when Aleksandr Pushkin drooled his first. And although he’s better known for his grim novels, Thomas Hardy, born on the 2nd in 1840, was one of the great poets of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Posted by: The Editors Anatomy of a boxJune 1st, 2003 BY LANE BROWNING Dear Don't Ask, A question about tipping in the personal services area. It was my understanding that if the owner of the beauty salon provided the service, tipping was not necessary, but if an employee provided it, then tip. But these days the provider is often independent and just pays for space. If so, is a tip, in addition to a $30 haircut fee, standard operating procedure? Let’s establish first that tipping has always been an elective practice.
Posted by: The Editors The best books of 2002June 1st, 2003 BY CAROL WOLFE Dear Carol, My husband and I have been avid readers of both your column and Black Lamb since 1946. We have been particularly fond of your yearly book issue and, after reading it, have had some lively discussions. My husband Gilbert saves every copy despite the fact that he never agrees with your opinions. He loves to pull out the issue from April 1947 in which, upon the release of Bend Sinister, you describe Vladimir Nabokov as a “…third rate hack. Next time you have a hankering for a white Russian, may I suggest one part Kahlua to two parts vodka.” I have heard that you were unable to do a book issue in 2002 due to the fact that you were in Sweden to accept some type of award and was wondering if you would be resuming the tradition in 2003. Gretchen S.
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