Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 1d

Terrific #documentary, “The Piccirilli Factor,” by Eduardo Montes-Bradley, about six #Italian #immigrant stone carver/sculptor brothers working in the Bronx who made some of NYC's most beloved sculptures.
www.montesbradley.com
calandrainstitute.org/events/the-p...
@calandrainstitute.bsky.social

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 7d

Ite, Papae! And keep on going, dude! #WeStandWithImmigrants

The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 7d

On Tuesday evening, the Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV spoke out against anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, as well as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s bellicose rhetoric.
trib.al/ratDI8t

B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 12d

#amreading CONUNDRUM by Jan Morris. Only a writer of such style, wit, and singularity would write of her sex change: "It was inevitable and it was deeply satisfying - like a sentence which, defying its own subordinate clauses, reaches a classical conclusion in the end." #booksky

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 12d

Rest in power, Assata Shakur. ASSATA: An #Autobiography is one of the most moving autobiographies I've ever read, with a canny structure of chapters moving back and forth between the present + past until the narrative meets in the middle. #booksky #Assata
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Assata Shakur, an icon of Black liberation who was exiled to Cuba, dies aged 78

Shakur spent decades exiled after she was convicted of killing a state trooper in 1977 and escaped from prison

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · 15d

Congress can end Trump’s Epstein cover-up: act.indivisible.org/sign/epstein...

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 16d

Most Holy Redeemer, an #EastVillage #Catholic church of surpassing beauty, is on the chopping block. It was built in 1851 to serve the #German immigrant community. Sign GVSHP's petition - p2a.co/k1lzcji - to keep it from the fate of Dorothy Day's Church of the Nativity.
evgrieve.com/search/label...

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 16d

I'm so sad to hear that Bluestockings is closing. This was a great bookstore as well as a community gathering place. They will be missed. #booksky bluestockings.com

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 20d

It's a bit like shooting scungilli in a barrel - and so very mean of me! - but I write about #Netflix's #Nonnas on my blog, #forteegentile, with a wider aim of pondering the reductive and undying cliches around a certain kind of #ItalianAmerican #nostalgia. forte-e-gentile.com/2025/09/18/n...

“Nonnas” and Italian American Longing

No grandmom of mine. How unfair to pick on this flimsy little “heartwarming” movie, particularly when the world is hurtling toward ruin. The plot is low-stakes, TV-ready, and based on a true story:…

forte-e-gentile.com

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · 23d

Just lovely to see that Ben Ratliff's thoughtful, generous, sui generis RUN THE SONG: Writing About Running About Listening made the National Book Awards Long List for Nonfiction. Go Ben! @graywolfpress.bsky.social #nationalbookaward #booksky
www.nationalbook.org/2025-nationa...

2025 National Book Awards Longlist for Nonfiction

The ten contenders for the National Book Award for Nonfiction

www.nationalbook.org

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Sep 5

"Despite the myth of his novel’s sweat-soaked, 28-day birth, #Kerouac’s preparations indicate that he was a highly ordered and self-conscious literary artist. Contra Truman Capote’s vicious quip, this wasn’t typing, it was *writing*." Great piece re ON THE ROAD by @ghoward1950.bsky.social. #booksky

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · Sep 2

This piece in the AMERICAN SCHOLAR tries to correct some widespread misconceptions about the genesis and publication of ON THE ROAD and apportion credit and some blame where both are due. It derives from my book on Cowley, THE INSIDER, coming in November.

theamericanscholar.org/scrolling-th...

Scrolling Through - The American Scholar

Jack Kerouac, Malcolm Cowley, and the difficult birth of On the Road

theamericanscholar.org

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Sep 4

All out on October 18th for #NOKINGS:
www.nokings.org
#NoDictators #TiredOfMaliciousIdiots

No Kings

As the president escalates his authoritarian power grab, the NO KINGS non-violent movement continues to rise stronger. We are united once again to remind the world: America has No Kings and the power ...

www.nokings.org

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Sep 4

"I try all things, I achieve what I can."
The writing desk of #HermanMelville at Arrowhead outside Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he wrote MOBY DICK. In the distance is a view of Mt. Greylock. Totally lovely people at Arrowhead, real tenders of the flame. berkshirehistory.org #Berkshires #booksky

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Aug 19

… somehow I wound up with *two* copies of LAFCADIO’S ADVENTURES and still never have been able to get into Gide’s writing. But Gorey's cover is a beaut, and I love how he re-drew the price to show the crucial ten-cent increase. #Booksky #EdwardGorey

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Aug 6

For @ghoward1950.bsky.social, one of my favorite Edward Gorey covers, for NINETEENTH CENTURY GERMAN TALES (1959), edited by the tireless Angel Flores. #booksky

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Aug 6

Seen at an estate sale in Pittsfield, MA, this weekend, a first edition of a novel that I love, DISTURBANCES IN THE FIELD (1983) by the vastly underappreciated Lynne Sharon Schwartz. With the cool old Edvard Munch print on the front and a blurb from Max Apple on the back. #booksky

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Aug 6

"Even though Brown’s agreement does not go as far as implementing a third-party monitor similar to that imposed on Columbia, Brown’s capitulation still marks a surrender of institutional independence." 2 for 2 as far as my almae matres cratering. #SPINELESS www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

Dissent: Brown’s deal with Trump is appeasement, not pragmatism

Serving the Brown University community since 1891

www.browndailyherald.com

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Aug 5

Billie Holiday and her dog Mister, New York, NY, c. 1947, William P. Gottlieb, photographer. My grandmom Elsie Brandi Firmani Ciunci and her dog Herky, Elsmere, DE, c. early 1970s, taken by my Uncle Ray. I do love a lady and her #dog.

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Aug 5

#amreading THE TARTAR STEPPE (1940) by Dino Buzzati, trans. Stuart C. Hood. Often called “Kafkaesque,” this novel seems to me less sinister and more melancholy, somehow deeply #Italian. Captures the slow drip of passing time, the surprise of aging, but is also lyrical, dreamlike, lovely. #booksky

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Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · Aug 5

The Republican-appointed justices have decided it is time to fully destroy the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

The Supreme Court prepares to end voting rights as we know it

And they don't want you to notice.

www.motherjones.com

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Reposted by B.G. Firmani

Indivisible ❌👑 @indivisible.org · Aug 5

Trump’s Epstein cover-up isn’t about ancient history. This is about a sitting president potentially being able to use his power (again) to protect himself and his elite friends from justice.

But the story isn’t going away — because we’re not letting it: indivisible.org/epsteinfiles...

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Aug 4

www.amnestyusa.org/toolkits/tak... @amnesty.org

Take the 7-Day Challenge to Help Stop Starvation in Gaza

Palestinians in Gaza are facing starvation, and Israel has turned aid sites into death traps. Take this 7-day challenge to help build pressure.

www.amnestyusa.org

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Jul 28

Thank you for writing. He was a very special man, and thought of war as the very last resort.

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Jul 24

"MSF staff and patients are wasting away as mass starvation spreads across Gaza." @doctorswithoutborders.org
give.doctorswithoutborders.org/campaign/678...

Donate to Help save lives. Donate now.

Support our cause by donating to Doctors Without Borders.

give.doctorswithoutborders.org

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B.G. Firmani @bgfirmani.bsky.social · Jul 24

#amreading WEEP NOT, CHILD (1964) by the great Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o. So many moods and textures in this brilliant #novel: dreamy, clear-eyed, absurdist, heartbroken, enduring. The young protagonist Njoroge’s unyielding quest for learning is particularly moving. And the ending is beautiful. #booksky

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