So long Kirkus, we hardly knew ye'
I found out a couple of days ago that Kirkus Review is shutting it’s doors and it kinda felt like someone had hit me in the chest with a hardback copy of Infinite Jest, ie. it stung, more than a little. And I know that outside of authors and folks in the book biz, the news is probably not much more than a fart in the wind, but as someone who grew up with Kirkus and still planned to one day see my byline amongst it’s pages of slightly crabby book reviews, the aroma of this news was particularly funky.
For as long as I can remember I’ve been a book review addict. In high school, years before I decided I wanted to write for living, we always had subscriptions to at least 2 newspapers and I remember waking up on Sunday mornings and tearing apart the Richmond Times Dispatch and the New York Times, reordering the sections to fit my nerdy needs. First there were the two book review sections (remember when book reviews actually had their own sections?), then travel, then lifestyle/arts, then comics, then the magazines. And somewhere after that was the rest of that stuff that other people seemed to think was important.
Oscar Grant and Oakland Local
by admin on 30. Dec, 2009 in Essays & Commentary, Media, Social Justice
Oscar Grant Memorial this Friday
Tomorrow night marks the 1 year anniversary of the murder of Oscar Grant by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle and emotions in Oakland are running high. From renewed anger over police brutality, to BART announcing it will increase the number of police on call for the night. It’s a complicated issue with a lot of unanswered questions. But no matter where you stand on the fallout after of the death, hopefully you’re moved by the fact that a life was lost. Politics, opinions and ideologies aside, a young man died. Let’s not lose site of that.
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