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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. |
A decent manBetrayal in WisconsinJuly 1st, 2010 BY GREG ROBERTS I like reading books that no one has heard of. The 1950 memoirs of Valentin R. Garfias, Garf From Mexico, was limited to 2,000 copies, one of which was discarded by Cal State University, Hayward, ending up at the Salvation Army store. An excellent read — and if you do read it, you are in the dozens, like Spix macaws.
Is it an important work? Very important. Obscurity means nothing. Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat languished for more than a century before it was rediscovered. And what about Moby-Dick? So there. Isaac Stephenson’s remarkable life conveys a clear message to us: people living in the mid-1800s were amazingly resourceful, resilient, and self-reliant, and we need to be more like them. We are malnourished slugs, slaves to larger machines, and mentally torpid as well, the light bulb in our brain flickering like a feeble firefly.
Posted by: The Editors June 2010 in Black LambVolume 8, Number 6 — June 2010June 1st, 2010 In the cover essay of our June issue, A Mad Tea Party, Toby Tompkins takes a look at America’s screw-loose political movement. Greg Roberts remembers raising bunnies as a kid with In praise of rabbits. In Name dropping in the Bush League, John M. Daniel relates family anecdotes of the George Bushes, father and son.
Posted by: The Editors Name dropping in the Bush LeagueJune 1st, 2010 BY JOHN M. DANIEL My late brother, Neil Daniel, used to enjoy saying, “The last time I saw George Herbert Walker Bush, he was sitting on my toilet, moving his bowels.” (Actually, he said “Poppy Bush,” not the full four-part name, and he had a less formal way of saying “moving his bowels,” too.) Neil was a wit with a sophisticated sense of humor, so it’s curious that he would bring this matter up, and equally curious that it always got a laugh. After all, we’re talking about an act that everyone in the room, presumably, has done more than once. Even future presidents of the United States, future protectors of the Free World.
I don’t think my brother was simply looking for a cheap laugh; nor was he making a pompous egalitarian statement along the lines of “Everybody poops.” No, Neil was doing some sophisticated name-dropping, downplaying the long-standing close relationship our family had with the Bushes of Kennebunkport.
Posted by: The Editors May 2010 in Black LambVolume 8, Number 5 – May 2010May 1st, 2010 The All Memorial Issue In the cover essay of our All-Memorial Issue, Meeting Guy, John M. Daniel recalls his long-distance relationship with an extraordinary first cousin, Guy Waterman. Our page two feature, Eastertide, is a letter written in 2002 describing the colorful and moving Paschal traditions in an Amalfi coast village.
Posted by: The Editors Brief encountersMay 1st, 2010 BY TOBY TOMPKINS Anyone who’s survived for sixty-seven years and been even peripherally involved in the arts has met famous people, now defunct, from time to time. The trick, it seems to me, is to write about those meetings without sounding like a name-dropping show-off. Unless you’re My first notable encounter with a Notable involved Robert Penn Warren. He was the uncle of a Yale classmate and was teaching at the university at the time.
Posted by: The Editors April 2010 in Black LambVolume 8, Number 4 — April 2010April 1st, 2010 In our cover essay, A regrettable decision, Terry Ross tells of a friend who gave away most of his carefully collected library and wishes he hadn’t. In Foundation for a bitter life, Greg Roberts deplores the sappy television commercials of the Foundation for a Better Life. Thong underwear devotee Beren deMotier describes the most embarrassing moment of her life in A cautionary tale.
Posted by: The Editors A regrettable decisionApril 1st, 2010 BY TERRY ROSS This is the saddest story I have ever heard. A couple of years ago a close friend of mine, who was moving from one state to another, did a very strange thing. For reasons that I’ve never understood, he decided to get rid of most of
Posted by: The Editors March 2010 in Black LambVolume 8, Number 3 — March 2010March 1st, 2010 The All Crime Issue In our cover article, attorney Bud Gardner looks back on My career in crime. In Even I am a criminal, Greg Roberts observes that practically everything has been criminalized. In Crimes against the person, Rosemary McLeish deplores the fact that almost every woman has been the victim of sexual assault at some time in her life.
Posted by: The Editors The Case of the Missing Family TreeMarch 1st, 2010 BY JOHN M. DANIEL IN THE AJAX BUILDING A dame shaped like Centerfold Barbie glided into my office. “Mr. Blank,” she purred in an upper-class English accent, “I’m Josephine Toy. My family has lost its family tree. Can you help us?” “I know nothing about English trees, Mrs. Toy,” I answered. “Just the ones in northern Minnesota.” “It’s Miss.” She tossed an envelope onto my desk, then turned to leave. Her jeans were so tight I could read the tattoos on her buttocks: “Right,” “Left,” in that order. “Those are instructions, Mr. Blank,” she said over her shoulder. “So you can get in touch with me.”
Posted by: The Editors February 2009 in Black LambVolume 8, Number 2 — February 2010February 1st, 2010 In our cover article, Do inquiring minds want to know?, Terry Ross does some research and finds, surprisingly, that scientists are not in agreement on global warming, and that global warming may not even be occurring. Former prison inmate Dean Suess resigns himself to praying alone in Church without walls. In Ready for your closeup? Ed Goldberg ponders what lengths people will go to to achieve fame.
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