The Stonewall Riot The Stonewall Riot happened on a Saturday night—June 28, 1969. I was passing through Greenwich Village that night and saw young guys throwing things at cops, but had no idea why. I assumed it was an anti-war demonstration, because they occurred fairly regularly during those years. I only found out that […]
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Advice for Passover 2016
Pharaoh Tutankhamen We were promised a trickle of silver while billionaires swallowed the mint. Instead a mighty river of advice runs down on us, advice like an ocean of corrosion from the faucets of Flint: Don’t ask for paradise. We’ll dribble out an extra dollar or two over a few years, while we hike prices […]
A Different Species?
Louis XVI in his coronation robes, 1777 Recently I heard a self-styled “futurist” predict that the super-rich would find ways, with the help of modern science, to extend their lives beyond that of ordinary humans. Even more, they would genetically engineer themselves to become a different (and presumably superior) species. I wasn’t terribly impressed. While […]
Death Without Dignity in Oregon
Big Pharma–profiting off disease and death IMO, death is never dignified, but it can be made less ugly and painful. However, that’s not necessarily how Oregon’s law is carried out. A bit of background: almost two months ago, Sylvia and I traveled to the home of an old friend in Florida. Marion is 86, is losing […]
Reviews, and a Holiday Sale!
By Martha Shelley on November 7, 2015 in Ebisu Publications, Elijah, Empire, Israel, Jezebel, Martha Shelley, The Stars in their Courses, The Throne in the Heart of the Sea
I’ve just had both books reviewed by Amos Lassen, a gay activist and scholar of Jewish history. A somewhat abridged version of the reviews is below. And these came just in time for the holidays! So I’m announcing a special holiday sale of the second volume, The Stars in their Courses. Normally you can buy […]
Books for the Holidays
By Martha Shelley on October 23, 2015 in Ebisu Publications, The Stars in their Courses, The Throne in the Heart of the Sea
The holidays are coming. What better present than a book? You can purchase The Throne in the Heart of the Sea and The Stars in their Courses in three ways: if you live in Portland, you can go to St. Johns Booksellers. Both books are also available through the publisher’s website, www.ebisupublications.com. And if you […]
Rabble-rousing in the Big Apple
Speaking at the Stonewall The Stonewall Inn, where gays fought back against a police raid in 1969, is now the first national heritage site honoring gay people’s struggles. (For those who’ve never been there, it’s in Greenwich Village.) I was asked to be part of an event on Sept 20, promoting the idea of making […]
Saturday Night in St. Johns
Crows roosting for the night I seem to be on a poetry jag. This is a first draft: Our town is an extremity, the northernmost finger of a swarming city. The main drag on Saturday night: the sun at its lowest flings javelins of red gold light through maple branches illuminates the flights of mosquitoes, […]
The FBI and me
This month I read about a young Muslim couple—he is 22 and she, 19—arrested in Mississippi. Their crime was trying to travel abroad to join the Islamic state. Apparently they had been exchanging emails with an FBI agent pretending to be an Islamist, and he’d encouraged them in this endeavor. These young people hadn’t committed […]
The First Little Girl on Mars
When I was ten, my ambition was to go to Mars. I imagined stepping out of a spaceship and onto the surface of the red planet, greeting the little green natives. In my mind’s eye I would look very much as I did then: around four feet tall, bespectacled, wearing a knee-length wool jumper, my […]