Letters at 3AM

Unless my transmission conks out in a place like Bossier City, a guy like me hasn't much chance to hear out a guy like Virgil

"...constantly ringing phone, told me to be careful of "that motel" – stay in the room after dark, don't..."

Feb. 3, 2006 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

With oil in the future rationed to agriculture, essential services, and (inevitably) the military, and personal long-distance driving and passenger flight no longer feasible – then, if the United States is to remain a continental entity, the only answer is trains

"...One: Global climate change may be drastic, catastrophic in places, but not..."

Oct. 28, 2005 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

The following examples of government mismanagement ought to be April Fools' jokes, but they're not

"...caused an ever-so-slight increase in the speed of Earth's rotation. So our day is milliseconds shorter – just when..."

April 1, 2005 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Statistics on American education tell a dreadful story, the story of an advanced technological society slipping back to a state of ignorance and superstition

"...Statistics on American education tell a dreadful story, the story..."

Feb. 18, 2005 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

This month celebrates the 400th anniversary of Cervantes' 'Don Quixote,' the first great novel of Western literature and the most prophetic, in which deconstruction, postmodernism, and literary theory wind up bumping into one another and falling down hard

"...The late Jacques Derrida made a good living and confused multitudes..."

Jan. 7, 2005 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Cry over the election if you must, but don't let the bastards sap your vitality. American progressives started seriously mass-scale organizing only about a year ago, and in just one year we came within reach of victory.

"...who shook his hand. In the spirit of passing that handshake on, here are some thoughts the day after..."

Nov. 12, 2004 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

The great days of the United States of America are over: Our country is now important economically only because of its citizens' consumption

"...The administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W...."

Oct. 29, 2004 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Speaking through your children's blood, and the words of the past and the present

"...Dear Kathleen ......"

June 11, 2004 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

In the next presidential election, only the Democrats can be counted on to preserve the Bill of Rights

"...Two weeks ago I documented the George W. Bush attack on the Bill of Rights: his USA PATRIOT Act,..."

Feb. 6, 2004 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Americans are paying the price for lies about Iraq told by their leaders.

"...made his carrier landing to announce victory (a stunt that cost the taxpayers $1 million), more American soldiers have..."

Sept. 5, 2003 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

A Little Late, For Bix

"...in a fever -- banner headlines, shrill broadcasts, protests, threats, and lies. Everyone knew what was coming and pretty..."

May 16, 2003 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

Winning the war in Iraq is not a measure of our country's morality.

"...Times editorial, March 31: "When depleted uranium burns upon penetrating its target, it turns into a fine dust that..."

April 18, 2003 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3am

Learning about "manhood" from the movies.

"...1960 Dave had just turned 15, I'd make 15 that fall, two adolescent boys, ripe, impressionable, and seeking (unconsciously)..."

May 31, 2002 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

The Bush White House is mounting the most sustained and successful attack on the Constitution in America's history and not enough of us are willing to say it publicly.

"...111 CE. Pliny the Younger is the Emperor Trajan's legate to Bithynia-Pontus, a city on the Black Sea. Pliny's..."

Dec. 21, 2001 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

The Bush White House is mounting the most sustained and successful attack on the Constitution in America's history and not enough of us are willing to say it publicly.

"...111 CE. Pliny the Younger is the Emperor Trajan's legate to Bithynia-Pontus, a city on the Black Sea. Pliny's..."

Dec. 14, 2001 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM

ABC's short-lived TV show Wonderland failed to depict mental illness and its treatment in a realistic light.

"..."These are the people that society would prefer just go away. The shadow people..."

May 12, 2000 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters At 3AM: Karen Holden's This Music

This Music, Karen Holden's new poetry collection, expresses the connection between the self and the world

"...in the same modest apartment. Cavafy was a poet. That is, he was an indefinable being, even more indefinable..."

Sept. 5, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Hitting the Street

Michael Ventura remembers how poverty bred contempt toward those he loved the most

"...tough, svelte, hip urchin – well, street kids like that exist, but they're the ones the street kills first...."

May 30, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: The Nameless Moon, Etc.

Ventura unpacks his folders full of sentences without homes, and other remnants excised from this and that

"...because they distracted. Once in a while, I save what's worth saving and empty the manilas onto this page...."

May 16, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Musicians of Behavior

Actors are musicians of behavior

"...There is a Celtic proverb that Gioia Timpanelli likes to quote: "The most beautiful music..."

May 2, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM – Manifesto: A Radical Aesthetics

Get stuff out there; work with cause: That's the genesis of LettersAt3amPress

"...work. A radical aesthetic is something more: the crossroads at which your vision of beauty meets the way you..."

March 21, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: 3% Neanderthal

Our DNA has seen it all before – and survived

"...That's me: 3% of my DNA is Neanderthal. Higher than..."

Jan. 10, 2014 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: JFK and That Hard Rain

When boomers and their offspring die out, Kennedy's assassination will have the approximate historical echo of William McKinley's

"...assignment soon after: "the flag, 250 words." A more complicated subject. I took a roundabout approach...."

Nov. 22, 2013 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: The Patriot Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden is the American equivalent of the man who stood in front of that tank in Tiananmen Square

"...Disclosures by the patriot Edward Snowden will have at least one penetrating and..."

June 28, 2013 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: Notes on a Long, Long Journey

Artists are but translators of that which flows through them

"...May 4: I cling, as a novelist, to what Orson Welles said: "Who needs plot? But who can..."

Jan. 11, 2013 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: A Jog in the Smog

What we know is increasingly disconnected from what we do

"...yards away from these health-minded people, clouds of poison emanate from myriad exhaust pipes – smoke engineered to be..."

Aug. 10, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: 'I Have Heard the Mermaids Singing'

"Route 66" taught me that I did not want to be rooted again

"...on my own. Strangers took me in. I wasn't grateful. I felt no loyalty. They were not my kind...."

June 29, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: 'Suppose I Said I Was the Queen of Spain?'

In the early part of the Sixties, television's "Route 66" offered a taste of the new American consciousness

"...two-parent families raised most kids. College wasn't expensive. The national debt was pocket change. The government functioned fairly well...."

June 15, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: 'Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma?'

"Route 66" spoke to the sense of change afoot in America

"...Dobie Mall. We're facing northeast on an unfinished floor that's open to the sky. The camera pans to follow..."

June 1, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

Letters at 3AM: A View From the St. James Hotel

The St. James: It's an infirmary, it's a morgue, and it's a hotel where we each share a room with the dead

"...When Blind Willie McTell sings that, I don't know if the woman he addresses is..."

May 18, 2012 Column by Michael Ventura

« 1    ‹ BACK    1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10     NEXT ›    26 »