A Website of the Radical Imagination
First writers and readers comment on the election. America Alcoholica By Donna Gaines Remember, O Lord, what has happened to us; look, and see our disgrace. Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens, our homes to foreigners. We have become orphans and fatherless, our mothers like widows. We must buy the water we drink; … Read more
When Alexander Solzhenitsyn died last week, we went back to Michael Lydon’s “Real Writing,” which concludes with a celebration of Solzhenitsyn’s truth-telling. Take the following excerpts from Lydon’s work as his (and “First’s”) tribute to Solzhenitsyn. From many autobiographical passages in the Gulag volumes, and the portraits of Nerzhin and Kotoglotov, the Solzhenitsyn characters of … Read more
Ten years ago Armond White surveyed the state of “the movies” and film criticism in his “First of the Month” piece, “Things Done Changed: The McDonald’s Theory of Moviegoing.” White began with a quote from Pauline Kael’s classic 1968 essay, “Trash, Art and the Movies” – “Can one demonstrate that trash desensitizes us, that it … Read more
Excerpted from First of the Year: 2008 Copyright Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. It’s been an elegiac time for our crew lately. In the past year, we lost (among others) Hans Koning, Ellen Willis, George Trow, Kurt Vonnegut and, a year before that, Benjamin DeMott. They were First readers as well as writers for … Read more
Robin Morgan is justly celebrated by liberty lovers around the world for her pioneering writing and cultural activism on behalf of women’s freedom. Her bold statements paved the way for women like me to pursue a professional and personal life free from the fetters binding my own mom, grandmother, and aunts. When I first read … Read more
Hillary Clinton’s shot and a beer in Scranton reminded me of that old X song “The Have-Nots” — “How does it feel to have your own bottle of booze behind the bar, how does it feel?” Hillary, the $109 million dollar woman, doesn’t want to know yet she’s once again fabulating a felt connection with … Read more
Jesus taught me to love the hell out of my enemies. –Jeremiah Wright It takes an extraordinary faith in Barack Obama to believe, in early April of 2008, that Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president is somehow doomed. We can recite primary results and rattle off probable scenarios all we like, but the truth is that … Read more