New Humor Fiction: Driving Toward Gomorrah
Part 3 In an Ongoing Series on Sex and Love In Life’s Autumn Years
By Carlos Stranger
For obvious reasons, I’m opting not to include a photo with my submissions to Liberty Island. But I can truthfully assert that from the standpoint of appearances, I’m a very handsome man. I’m 6’2, with chestnut brown hair, a great physique, and intense hazel-gray eyes that have melted the hearts of many women in my day. Why disclose this? Because I’m about to delve into a topic that very handsome men seldom need to address: the need to pay for sex.
Read this Free Chapter from Silver & Lead: A Novella of the West
By David Churchill Barrow
Download Silver & Lead: A Novella of the West by David Churchill Barrow and MaryLu Barrow on Amazon for 99 cents!
New Poetry: Annoyed By the Bluebird
By Jon Bishop
I can hear you roaring dully,
like a lonely lion
announcing across the desert
that dinner is ready.
I want to shut you out,
but I can’t.
Because you are everywhere.
You bubble up like muck
from the depths of the earth,
and you are muck now,
squelching slime into the air,
cackling as you do.
Jazz VS. the Nazis: Esi Edugyan’s Extraordinary Half-Blood Blues
Deconstructing Canadian Culture, Part 13: A Novel I Cannot Recommend Enough
By Josh Lieblein
So as our series on major Canadian writers draws to a close, it’s time to ask the big questions that hang over everything: Who or what is to blame for the current state of Canadian literature? Why the tiny clique of writers who must content themselves with being the “Canadian Twain” or the “Canadian Bronte” or the “Canadian Faulkner”? Why the over-reliance on over-hyped creations like Atwood or Boyden? Where is the counterculture pushing for change, any change?
After spending more than a decade enmeshed in Canadian politics and culture, the only conclusion I can draw is: There is no impetus for change. Canadians simply don’t care whether they have a robust culture or not. Because if they did, there would be artists and funders and a homegrown Canadian counterculture movement, just like there is in every other country.
But, as the case of Esi Edugyan proves, there is no interest in building such a counterculture movement, even when the perfect leader of that would-be movement is right there.
PreTeena: January 21 – January 27, 2019
Sunday Comics!
By Allison Barrows
You won’t want to miss these hilarious cartoons depicting the ups and downs of adolescence. Now each week’s strips will debut on Sundays as the lead strip of Liberty Island’s Sunday Comics feature. If you draw a comic and would like to have your work featured on Sundays, please contact us: [email protected] Check out Allison Barrows’ new PreTeena blog here.
Two Close-Up Pics of Siberian Husky Maura
These were taken April 9, 2015
By David M. Swindle
*Submit your photographs of nature and the outdoor life to [email protected] to participate in this weekly feature exploring the natural world.*
Here’s a Free Chapter from Right Tool for the Job
Discover the memoir of masculinity from Mark Goldblatt
By Mark Goldblatt
Pick up Right Tool for the Job: A Memoir of Manly Concerns by Mark Goldblatt.
Making Gotham Great Again, Part 4: Mitt Romney, Man of Steel
Considering Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns as a Mirror to Today’s Politics
By Shant Eghian
When doing pieces like these, it’s really easy for everything to become one giant Rorschach Test. You see some faint parallels between a book or movie you love and the current political situation, and you immediately start making these ridiculous connections between things that really have no relation at all. “Batman is Trump, so the Joker is Hillary Clinton, because they’re both the archenemies! And The Joker and Clinton both wear lipstick and… stuff…”
Thankfully, I think I’ve mainly avoided that throughout this series, but I have to admit, I started getting suspicious of myself when I got to the subject of this final article: Superman. He’s an integral part of The Dark Knight Returns, and a central part of Miller’s satire, so I couldn’t just ignore him. At the same time, any parallel I drew between Superman and a current political figure seemed to be an exercise in the “Rorschaching” that I was worried about. Is he Hillary Clinton? Robert Mueller? Pepe the frog?
See the previous installments in the “Making Gotham Great Again” series analyzing the themes of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and today’s political culture: Part 1: The Media, Part 2: Law and Order, Part 3: Ronald Reagan and the Republican Establishment
The Quiet Earth VS. The Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price
By Tamara Wilhite
It was a shock to realize that The Quiet Earth is now old enough to be a classic like The Last Man on Earth. These two low budget science fiction movies have a number of points in common, though there are understandable differences as well. Spoiler warning – we spoil everything.
New Historical Fiction: A Hero’s Inspiration
By David Churchill Barrow
Young Christopher worshiped a superhero. There was no help for it; the spirit of the man was in the very air he breathed in Boone’s Lick, Missouri – the final stop for that famous family. Christopher’s own family lived on land purchased from the Boones and had intermarried with them. He would sit wide-eyed by the fire as the men told stories, sometimes repeatedly, of the exploits of Daniel Boone.
He was told how Dan’l got his first rifle at the age of twelve; and how he promptly shot a panther through the heart in mid-air as it pounced, while his young companions ran for their lives. Christopher knew that Daniel Boone was the first to lead the pioneers on the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland gap to the Ken Tuc Ky – the “dark bloody ground” where tribes from all points of the compass met to settle their differences in battle. He thought how foolish it was for that Shawnee war party to kidnap those Boonesborough girls foraging outside the settlement. Did they not know one of them was Jemima Boone? It took but two days for her father and some friends to track them down, surprise them as they ate – kill some, scatter the rest, and bring Jemima and the other two girls home safe and unharmed.
