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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 COPYEmail us. There is absolutely no obligation. SUBSCRIBESupport this independently published
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Archive for the 'Browning' CategoryAuthor intervention, author inventionMarch 1st, 2012 BY LANE BROWNING “Wasn’t there supposed to be beer?” he asked, way too loudly, addressing no one at all. “I was told there’d be beer.” He was dissolute. He was disheveled. He was obstreperous. He was not godlike.
Earlier that day, when I’d learned that the author of one of my top-five-most-admired-pieces-of-short-fiction would be speaking a half-hour from my house, I was awash with excitement. I’d seen another much admired writer, and his talk was buttery and buoying and witty and articulate and transporting. So this chance I would not miss. David Long. David Long, whose collection Blue Spruce holds an honored spot on my bookshelf. With one particular chunk exalted. And here he was, this ghoul of a pretender. I know about the disconnect between icons and authenticity. I know that the celebrity is not necessarily his/her public persona. But this? This was about the creative arts, not about facial symmetry or beautiful singing. This was about the words and the brain, and his banal presentation and shitty attitude were disorienting.
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 LogophiliaOctober 1st, 2011 BY LANE BROWNING There is Charades, and then there is Charades. I come from what people would call an “intellectual” family; both of my brothers have doctorates, and each of them has been married to women with doctorates (my brother’s second wife had two). My sister is a retired surgeon married to an orthodontist; my nephew is a surgeon, my nearest cousin is a neonatologist, my nieces are bilingual and academically accomplished. My son, still in his teens, has already won science and math awards. I’m the dumb one, but that’s not the subject of this essay. Though I have sibs who speak multiple languages and have traveled all parts of the globe and published in impressive journals, what probably defines us as a group is our humor — and the games. When we congregate, the games predominate. Yes, there is a lot of conversation, and there is some cooking and eating and physical activity; but chiefly, it’s the games. Not board games or games requiring pieces. In my family, the default is Charades and the runnerup is Dictionary Game.
Posted by: The Editors Sick & tiredMay 1st, 2011 BY LANE BROWNING Emily Dickinson was lucky. Not because she had writing chops, but because she had a cool kind of sick. I’d like to have a cool kind of sick.
Posted by: The Editors Till death us do…The parts cannot add up to the whole.November 1st, 2009 BY LANE BROWNING The scalp and subgaleal tissues appear normal. The calvarium is typical in thickness. There is very little fluid in the chest cavities. She was an internationally known author and educator. She was indefatigable, wise, a beacon for thousands. My friend, my familiar.
We emailed every day, sometimes many many many times a day. We collaborated on two books and a series of educational CDs. We weathered rotating life traumas via the Internet tether. She called me her “sister by choice,” and she was, professionally, a savior to my son. But until she died I didn’t know that her epicardium glistened.
Posted by: The Editors Nyet, nein, non, no!April 1st, 2007 BY LANE BROWNING
Just a peeve of mine; I don’t use “celibate” to mean “doing without sex.” I use it to mean “forgoing marriage” or “unmarried,” and celibacy is embedded in my hemoglobin. I never “got” the whole marriage thing. Chastity is quite another animal. Chastity sucks. But where was I…. OK, here: I was compatibly unmarried to the same person for a very long time. A very very very long time. Throughout our history, we got the same tedious roster of questions, and I always delivered the same responses:
Posted by: The Editors Just a pianoSaying goodbye to a musical instrument wreathed in memoriesMarch 1st, 2004 BY LANE BROWNING I wasn’t there for the leavetaking. I said goodbye the night before.
It was just a piano. No cachet and no pedigree, but oh, how it held its pitch! In Thailand, it stayed in tune despite brutal humidity and the effects of the long journey. In Oklahoma, it sang in the arid dust-choked summers. In Virginia, and California… through more than a dozen moves: up stairs, over balconies, down ramps, over highways, and across rivers — it held its pitch, and upon it we tattooed the themes of our lives. Dirges, anthems, ballads and ballets. Decades of joy and routine.
Posted by: The Editors Wet is beautifulSeptember 1st, 2003 BY LANE BROWNING I watch it every time it’s on TV. Every time. Every single time. The water. The grunge. The laconic, scowling protagonist. The long, dreary silences. THE WATER! It was nominated for a Raspberry Award as 1997’s worst film of the year (Showgirls won; pole dancing beat out water ballet) and was the subject of international ridicule, sometimes touted as “the most awful movie in history.” (Excuse me, but that distinction, indisputably, goes to Disney’s Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend.) It stars an actor for whom I have not a scintilla of respect. But it’s one of my favorite films. Waterworld.
Posted by: The Editors I hate booksJune 1st, 2003 BY LANE BROWNING When I was about nine I fell in love with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I was a solitary kid, and books were a seductive escape. I used to sit under a flowering bush in my family’s side yard, soggy peanut butter sandwich in hand, smelly little terrier snuffling by my side, just reading. Lewis Carroll’s imaginative scenarios about the little girl down the rabbit hole spoke directly to my rebel heart, and I memorized long passages and fancied myself a modern-day Alice: she was so crisp, so witty, so practical and peppy. She made sparkling observations, and her world was speckled with talking animals! A dream book, a book to carry with me everywhere. Then I found out that the Rev. Dodgson was a pedophile. He converted his obsession with Alice Liddell into something sanitized and mainstream when all he really wanted was to photograph her in her underwear.
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 |
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