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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 'Suess' CategoryStudy in scarletMay 1st, 2007
I have been working for some time on the outline of a novella, a study in scarlet as it were, of the dismal lives of people fascinated by, surrounded by, intrigued by, even bound by the actions of inmates in the prison system and those released, now living as ex-cons. What in God’s name makes “normal” people, whose self-preservation instincts should be shrieking “Run away! Run away!” seek out cons, insinuate themselves into their lives, accept substantial damage at their hands and through their machinations, and further ingratiate themselves in most humiliating and co-dependent ways — what makes these “normal” people tick?
Posted by: The Editors Out of whackApril 1st, 2007 BY DEAN SUESS How can one write about marriage when the American model is divorce? What point is there writing about a social institution that is statistically given to failure the majority of the time? The average marriage used to last seven years before ending in an expensive and shattering divorce. Then again, so did the average affair. It amazes me that a person would marry, risking one’s financial well-being with another person who, when the lust ends, the instant gratification fails, and the petulance sets in, will take the other for all he or she is worth, leaving behind a shell-shocked ex and probably progeny, all of whom become damaged goods. At one time, marriage was the foundation of financial responsibility. Now, however, depending on the judge, divorce can be far more financially lucrative than marriage, if you survive the emotional trauma. And this demonstrates what? Sensitivity?
Posted by: The Editors PrunoNovember 1st, 2006 BY DEAN SUESS “Stuff these down your pants.” “Say what?” Underneath the table, Thug One handed Patsy One a wad of sugar packets.
Posted by: The Editors Reality avoidanceMarch 1st, 2006 BY DEAN SUESS Everyone in prison does time in his own way. Depending on the anesthesia of choice, we can work out pseudo-time reduction programs, which we jokingly call “half-time.” It’s tongue-in-cheek, a parody of this state’s occasional offers to grant legitimate half-time reductions for specific criminal classes: dopers and meth lab contractors, for example. Some inmates are doped up on prescription medications, some on smuggled drugs. Some sleep half or more than half their time away. But by far the preferred half-time, or half-life, is watching television. Actually, “watching” is too active a verb to describe the non-engagement of brain synapse required by sitting in front of a television. We have a cable contract at this prison, which provides over fifty channels of mind-numbing dreck. I haven’t had a television in my cell in quite some time, and I don’t miss it one bit. It’s entirely too irritating. Not to mention, most fights between cellies are over the television.
Posted by: The Editors Hating the seasonDecember 1st, 2004 BY DEAN SUESS I hate it when the family comes to visit at Christmas. Overeating, forced conversation, faked jollity, stupid stories from the past. God, it makes me want to puke. I told them, “Don’t come this year.” I just can’t handle it. Excuse the negativity, but Christmas in America has become a great disappointment, and it’s intensified within the prison setting. In prison, our expectations have been reduced to a null set, so achingly anti-celebratory as to make Dr. Seuss’s Grinch seem an archetype of cheerfulness. “The Grinch,” as you may recall, “hated Christmas,/The whole Christmas season./Please don’t ask me why,/No one quite knows the reason.”
Posted by: The Editors The language of meSeptember 1st, 2003
Man of La Mancha begins with the narrator’s invitation, “Come, enter into my imagination.” And as easily as that, no matter what the film, I am instantly transported into the land of make-believe. Utter fantasy, taking at face value the admonition to suspend my disbelief. I am a complete naïf about movies; whatever appears on the big screen is true within its own universe. It’s rather like the French language, I suppose, which makes exquisite sense only in French. If the Académie Française can dictate a comme il faut for sixty million people’s vocabulary and grammar, then the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can certainly insist on the same iron-fisted mind control when it comes to cinema.
Posted by: The Editors Sic transit horror mundiJune 1st, 2003 BY DEAN SUESS Eventually, it deteriorated into an unfriendly competition, of which she was completely unaware. It had begun friendly enough, I suppose. She was an English literature major, and I was majoring in music. I would cap her quotes, and she would cite
Posted by: The Editors Author profileDecember 1st, 2002 Dean Suess is a professional church musician and vocal soloist who lives in Seattle. He was recently discharged from penitentiary after serving seven years on a felony count. His Black Lamb column is called Pen Man.
Posted by: The Editors
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