RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE – A Bird's Eye View of Fashion, Food, Travel, Culture, Beverage and Curiosity

RKS American Literature: Bringing a Pornographer to Christmas Dinner (Dennis Lehane)

Mary Pat’s not going to be seen voluntarily walking two cops into her building. That would be like bringing a pornographer to Christmas dinner. Dennis Lehane, “Small Mercies”, 2023

RKS American Literature: In Boston Stay in Your “Own Neighbourhood” (Dennis Lehane)

Because the truth is they don’t understand one another. It’s not a plan of Mary Pat’s making, nor is it her desire, that they have different tastes in music, in clothes, in food they put on their tables. But that’s the way it is just the same. They like different cars, different sports, different movies.Continue reading “RKS American Literature: In Boston Stay in Your “Own Neighbourhood” (Dennis Lehane)”

RKS American Literature: Harvard Hippies (Dennis Lehane)

Getting out at Harvard Station, she enters Harvard Square, and it’s as bad as she suspected it would be – fucking hippies are everywhere, the air smells like pot and B.O., every twenty feet or so someone’s playing guitar and crooning about either love, man, or Richard Nixon, man. Nixon helicoptered off the White HouseContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Harvard Hippies (Dennis Lehane)”

RKS American Literature: Poverty and Luck in the United States (Dennis Lehane)

They aren’t poor because they don’t try hard, don’t work hard, aren’t deserving of better things. Mary Pat can look at almost anyone she’s ever known in Commonwealth in particular, or Southie in general, and find nothing but strivers, ballbusters, people who treat ten-ton burdens like they weigh the same as a golf ball, peopleContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Poverty and Luck in the United States (Dennis Lehane)”

RKS American Literature: Southie Boston Kids from the Project (Dennis Lahane)

All Southie kids loved the streets but none more than the project kids. Project kids hated staying in the way rich people hated work. Staying in meant smelling your neighbours’ food through the walls, hearing their fights, their fucks, their toilet flushes, what they listened to on their radios and record players, what they watchedContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Southie Boston Kids from the Project (Dennis Lahane)”

RKS American Literature: Forty-Two Years Old and Looking Like Crap (Dennis Lahane)

She carries the trash can into the living room and sweeps the beer cans into it. Empties the ashtrays from the coffee table and side table and the one she found on top of the TV. It’s there that she catches her reflection in the tube and sees a creature she can’t reconcile with theContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Forty-Two Years Old and Looking Like Crap (Dennis Lahane)”

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: There Are No New Ideas (Audre Lorde)

“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt-of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on a Sunday morning at 7 a.m., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead-while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of beingContinue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: There Are No New Ideas (Audre Lorde)”

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Militancy Does Not Mean Guns Blazing at High Noon (Audre Lorde)

“We who are Black are at an extraordinary point of choice within our lives. To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don’t mean me) or by despair (there’s nothing we can do). Each of us mustContinue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Militancy Does Not Mean Guns Blazing at High Noon (Audre Lorde)”

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Tokensim the Neutralizer of Creativity (Audre Lorde)

“And in the university that is no easy task, for each one of you by virtue of you being here will be deluged by opportunities to misname yourselves. To forget who you are, to forget where your real interests lie. Make no mistake you will be courted; and nothing neutralizes creativity quicker than tokensim. ThatContinue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Tokensim the Neutralizer of Creativity (Audre Lorde)”

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: BLACK Survival Skills (Audre Lorde)

“One of the most basic Black survival skills is the ability to change, to metabolize experience, good or ill, into something that is useful, lasting, effective. Four hundred years of survival as an endangered species has taught most of us that if we intend to live, we had better become fast learners. Malcom knew this.Continue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: BLACK Survival Skills (Audre Lorde)”