Discussion

the part about the freeze frame is excellent..where the frame exaggerates a moment and brings a totally different meaning to an otherwise trivial moment.

A glimpse. That’s all.

The kid brother of a brilliant newspaperman - Denise DeClue - I was granted the glimpse in 1975, at age 19, when Denise and her first husband, Chris the Communist, took me to O’Rourke’s on Halsted Street. That’s where it was happening.

A big-eyed kid from a little town, in the big city of Chicago for the first time. When people asked Denise where she was from, it was, “Boonville, Missouri, wanna make something of it?” When they asked me and I told them, it was followed by, “When’d you get out?” because, in the rest of Missouri, Boonville was mostly famous for the Training School for Boys. Our dad ran that joint.

Big brown eyes. Lean, with learning looks. Impressionable. So O’Rourke’s is where it’s happening. This is a city. This is Chicago. Men are Chris the Communist and Don the War Correspondent and that pudgy Ebert guy with the sharp, incisive wit, talking about Governor Moonbeam. Women are Denise the Newspaperman and Mike Tuohy and Pat Colander; women are beautiful and wonderful and tough and dangerous. And they talk to lean youths with learning looks!

We drank. We toasted the small-town boy in the big city, and the brilliant newspaperman, but mostly, that night, April 17, 1975, we toasted the glorious victory of the indigenous people who had overcome the colonial oppressors. It was a glorious night and we were one with each other and with the Old People throughout the world.

Perhaps Ebert is right that “few of the regulars often seemed hung over.” But at least one of the tourists was, on the morning after. I learned that hangovers hurt and that sometimes a victorious victory by freedom fighters can be followed by brutal torture and executions – that was the night the Khmer Rouge liberated Phnom Penh – and that what looks glorious through the bottom of a shot glass may lose color when reflected off a cup of coffee.

But some things are as true in the morning sunshine as they are in bar lights: Women are beautiful and wonderful and tough and dangerous. Thanks Denise and Pat and Mike.

- Greg DeClue

I have drifted away from Granta and this Chicago issue will bring me back to your stellar publication. Thank you.

Sounds an interesting issue. Love the cover!

Sounds like a superb issue.
Counting the days.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not there is reason to question Meghrahi's guilt, I want to comment as one who has been associated with a hospice program, as a volunteer and as a manager, for 10 years.

Every dying person should be treated with compassion, in a non-judgmental way. In this case, there were alternatives to release that would have extended compassion. Comfort care, with pain control, would have been in order (it should go without saying) and perhaps attendance at the prisoner's death by one or more of his family members. Compassion did not demand release.

Well, firstly I am surprised to see that mine would be the first comment on this piece. I am also shocked at the release, and cannot imagine how it feels to lose a loved one in a terrorist attack. I do however recall reading an in-depth account during this man's trial which I believe was at court in the Hague. If memory serves, there were holes in the prosecution's case. The journo who wrote the story suggested that the case was built on circumstantial evidence and one eye witness testimony from the airport in Sardinia or Minorca (?) where the alleged bomb suitcase had been loaded to the flight bound for Paris or London where it would then go on to USA. I do not recall the origin of that piece of writing, or the journo's name, but I am wondering if anyone else read a similar document...i.e. how far fetched is it to have some doubts about Meghrahi's guilt in this...??

This is, without question, a brilliant piece of writing by a unique voice. Looking forward to see where she goes next.

More details about event / venue etc available here: http://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/event/10002688-the-art-of-the-short-story/

Stimulating enough an essay that it had me searching for the Essays of Elia online and remembering my teen years at school studying the Dissertation upon Roast Pig.

Congratulations Ellah, wish you a great time at Granta.

This is incredibly sad.

One note, however. The OSHO ashram of Rajneesh was not technically "Buddhist." I believe he taught his own form of mysticism based on many religions. Though he did take much of his teaching on emptiness and nonduality from the sutras.

Dear Mod:

Could you point us to the feed for the Granta podcasts? I can't trace one on the Apple Store, nor The PodLounge.

Thanks and best wishes.

I too can't see how to get this as a podcast! I hope the Festival Hall talk is also made into a podcast.

thanks.

The skill with which immediacy is invoked is jaw-droppingly good. My first rich cyber-lit experience. What a buzz...

I sure don't see anything about the party at the Amnesia website!

A very good report.While India is progressing fast our governments both at the state and the centre should not abandon the poor.Turning a blind eye to India's majority who reside in the villages will not help us in the long run.I wish that the young new Members of Parliament will see to it that India's poor is not left behind.

This piece evokes life up the mountain from me, in the shadow of the Blue Ridge of NW Virginia. -- D. H. Dike

I suppose people would think in terms of the railroad or highway routes north and south. Auburn would be on the North-bound route.

Is there a feed for the Granta podcast? Where do I sign up?

This publication is publishing such unrelevent and baseless material simply because it has no concern with India and what really concerns it.

What a lovely piece. The image of the families with their torches will stay with me awhile.

A generous view into a writer's mind as he takes in the world around him, all his senses attuned. Lovely work.

Deeply felt and beautifully writeen, as is all of Weil's work. His is a true and vibrant voice that is not easily dismised or forgotten,

A beautiful meditation on the world next door thousands of miles distant. Thanks for giving us an entrance.