“The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne: This 1836 short story explores themes of secret sin and the nature of humanity. It tells the tale of Reverend Mr. Hooper, who suddenly begins wearing a black veil over his face, causing unease among his congregation. The veil symbolizes the hidden sins that individuals carry, prompting readers […]
Category: Book Club
Moral Musings and Iguanas The Moral Dilemma It’s so easy to look down from our throne of bounty, our luxury WLBOTT world, and ask these questions. The WLBOTT world, where we have unlimited ramen noodles and health care in the form of Vick’s Vap-o-rub and generic Tylenol. It’s hard to imagine anyone in America as […]
References Jennifer Clement (author of Prayers for the Stolen) Guerrero, Mexico Chilpancingo The movie and part I of the book are set on the outskirts of Chilpancingo, a city about an hour northeast of Acapulco. Chilpancingo de los Bravo (commonly shortened to Chilpancingo) is the capital and second-largest city of the Mexican state of Guerrero. […]
Book .vs. Movie Similar vignettes propel the story in both the movie and the book – hiding in makeshift foxholes, the classroom antics, the operation to transform Maria’s cleft pallet…. The book is divided into three parts. The movie roughly corresponds to the first part. In the second part of the book, a teen-aged Ladydi […]
The Movie Prayers for the Stolen follows a group of young girls, their families, and their community, as they struggle against poverty and oppressive evil. The movie takes place almost exclusively in a rural village in the mountainous jungles an hour’s drive from Acapulco. The movie focuses on a poor rural Mexican Indian girl, Ana […]
Dear Tess, I feel like the country is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The 2024 election cycle seems like a long, drawn-out, slow-motion colonoscopy prep. Can you help us get through this? Also, my body tractor starts hard, has horrible fuel consumption, and has overall low performance. Your friend in twine, – Live […]
All these years, I thought the phrase “the gaping maw of hell” was a line from Moby Dick. But no. Let’s break this down (from the full text archive at https://cdn.fulltextarchive.com/wp-content/uploads/wp-advanced-pdf/1/Moby-Dick-or-The-Whalex8185.pdf). Gaping Maw Hell Twenty-six occurrences? Oh, hell no. Too much work. Too much hell. Let’s just pick one. Let’s return to the sermon…. Elder […]
Anti-censorship advocates have joined the book publisher Penguin Random House in condemning a Texas county that reclassified an account of European settlers’ colonization of Indigenous Americans as fiction. The furor in Montgomery county – near Houston – follows the decision by a citizens review panel, at the behest of rightwing activists, to place Colonization and […]
The book that’s making the rounds among senior leadership at WLBOTT is An Inconvenient Apocalypse: Environmental Collapse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity by Professors Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen. Confronting harsh ecological realities and the multiple cascading crises facing our world today, An Inconvenient Apocalypse argues that humanity’s future will be defined not […]
The Journey We will assume that the UPS delivery drivers had an opportunity to visit the various public libraries as they aided in our business card journey. Livonia, MI The Livonia Public Library seems like a vibrant, inclusive, kid-friendly part of the community. They have four branches. Here are some pictures from their website and […]