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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 the 'Patton' CategoryBeats the alternativeApril 1st, 2007 BY JIM PATTON Great girl. (I met her in high school, then let a near-lifetime pass before I located her again.) Great woman. Real woman, with myriad strengths and what she’s always called her numerous “foibles.” (Which she’s hard pressed to name except for “bad cuticles.”) She claims a mean streak, though she’s as mild as they come. Maybe it does exist and she stifles it because, admittedly, she doesn’t like conflict or confrontation. More likely, her idea of a mean streak is getting irked about some little something every few months. What do I know? How well does anyone know anyone? My wife knows I’m a writer at heart (though my production waxes and wanes), knows I’m inclined to substances (though I promised not to introduce them into our life together, and haven’t), knows I don’t think highly of myself (though others see it differently), knows I can be mean (though rarely when I’m sober), knows I can be a softie (and promises not to tell). But what does this amount to? My real inner life is secret. Even when we went to counseling last year and bared plenty, to save the marriage, I held back (to save the marriage) — and I’m not one to hold back, so imagine what she leaves unsaid.
Posted by: The Editors Can’t imagine whyNovember 1st, 2006 BY JIM PATTON Ah, smoking. “A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless,” according to King James I of England. To which I could respond that nothing was ever less loathsome to my eye than beauteous Lisa Wilhelm smoking Gauloises cigarettes across a little table from me at a café in Brussels a few days before Christmas, many years ago; that plenty of people enjoy the smell of pipe tobacco and cigars, if not cigarettes (and a few enjoy even cigarettes); that Sir Winston Churchill lived to ninety-one despite smoking monster cigars (the type now known as Churchills) for decades.
Posted by: The Editors Hail Caesar!September 1st, 2003 BY JIM PATTON What can I tell you, if you haven’t seen Little Caesar? How about (to paraphrase the inimitable Edward G. Robinson as Rico/Little Caesar, an Al Capone-inspired gangster): Get your butt out and rent it, or my gun’s gonna speak its piece. Grrr.
Posted by: The Editors Mighty MarcelJune 1st, 2003 BY JIM PATTON Call me a Proust snob. Whatever. I’d rather be that than one of these “well-read” people who’ve never had the experience of A la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) or who tell you
Posted by: The Editors Author profileDecember 1st, 2002 Jim Patton is the author of two non-fiction books, Il Basket d’Italia: A Season in Italy with Great Food, Good Friends and Some Very Tall Americans and Rookie: When Michael Jordan Came to the Minor Leagues; two much-praised crime novels, The Shake and Dying for Dana; and a story in the 2006 DC Noir collection. He is currently at work on his long-awaited meaning-of-life opus. His Black Lamb column is called A La Recherche.
Posted by: The Editors
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