Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 10h

Getthefuckouttamyway! (NYC)

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 17h

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 17h

Tracy Flick becomes the woman she was always destined to be.

statuskuo.substack.com/p/pam-bondi-...

Pam Bondi Is a Piece of Work

And it’s clearer than ever that she sees her job as covering for and protecting criminals within the Trump regime.

statuskuo.substack.com

2

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 2d

Exactly the Kent State moment I was expecting. Alas, more of these to come, now that shame has left the civic building.

chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/10...

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorn...

chicago.suntimes.com

2

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 2d

Not a common choice, but hey, Gore can be approached and appreciated from so many angles.

1 1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 2d

As Gore said/lamented. "Always a godhead, never a god."

1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 2d

This is Vidal's best novel and that is really saying something. It puts him up there with Mary Renault and Robert Graves.

1 2 14

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 3d

Quite true! But the rest of a Vidal essay willl always pack a whole lot more wit and insight and erudition. I think he was the best American literary essayist of the past century.

H.L. Mencken’s Winking Ghost @harrysimmons3578.bsky.social · 3d

What I enjoy most about Gore Vidal's literary criticism is that he often tells you more in a sneering aside than most critics will tell you in an eight page review.

1 1 3

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 3d

Can we have the seventies back, please? Upsides like this more than make up for the, um, downsides.

Beatghoul ⑆⑇⑈⑉ @beatgrrrl.bsky.social · 3d

Aired October 5, 1979: Blondie performing on The Midnight Special

Blondie • Live Midnight Special • 1979

YouTube video by Blondie Archive

youtu.be

1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 5d

Whereas one of Wallace Stevens's colleagues at the Hartford thought that he was really just a big kidder in his poems.

Levi Stahl @levistahl.bsky.social · 5d

He often seemed to be living in a dreamland.

—one of T. S. Eliot’s colleagues at Lloyds

2

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 5d

Dude did ayahuasca before ayahuasca was cool. (That is Lucien Carr in the middle, btw.)

ginsbergpoem.bsky.social @ginsbergpoem.bsky.social · 6d

@beatgrrrl.bsky.social - Burroughs Yage Letters, Ginsberg's and Trump's America, today, the anniversary of the Howl verdict and upcoming anniversary of the Howl reading - allenginsberg.org/2025/10/f-o-...

3

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 6d

The Saudi Comedy Fest -- unbelievable! -- is nicely timed to coincide with this anniversary. Gotta love their sense of humor, right?

Andy Carvin @acarv.in · 7d

The Saudi government murdered Jamal Khashoggi seven years ago today. His editor @karenattiah.bsky.social wrote this two years ago.

Opinion | The moment I knew the world would try to move on from Jamal Khashoggi

I could see it coming at Time’s 2018 Person of the Year celebration.

wapo.st

3

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 6d

One of Kerouac's best books. On balance is got better reviews than ON THE ROAD, but the shock of the new had worn off and sales were far less.

Beatghoul ⑆⑇⑈⑉ @beatgrrrl.bsky.social · 6d

October 2, 1958: Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums was first published. The semi-fictional accounts in the novel are based upon events that occurred years after the events of On the Road.

Jack Kerouac wearing a suit and tie sitting side saddle in a large wooden chair.

A copy of the novel The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac.

4

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 6d

"Saudi Comedy Fest"!!! Yeah, everybody knows that their political assassinations and dismemberments really kill. Amazingly a number of women comics are performing at it. Sisterhood ain't so powerful when Saudi cash is on the table. Mo' money, less integrity.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/w...

At Saudi Comedy Fest, American Free Speech Becomes the Punchline

www.nytimes.com

1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 9d

I believe he wrote high-class porn for Olympia Press. Versatile!

Howard A. Rodman @rodman.bsky.social · 9d

September 27 was Alexander Trocchi Freedom Day.

1 2

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 9d

Will Kirkus start reviewing new flavors and brands?

Rakesh Satyal @rakeshsatyal.bsky.social · 9d

They’re blurbing yogurt now

1 3

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 10d

You could go back to this classic, almost ur-memoir to refresh. your sense of the artistry a great writer can bring to the form.

4

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 10d

Just saw it and it has some very powerful moments and some overstated and silly ones. The zeitgeist will kick in when commentators on the right notice that it is very much in sympathy with left radical revoutionaries committed to and capable of expert violence. Hoo boy, just you wait.

1 1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 10d

I like this list enormously and especiallly applaud the inclusion of Harry Mathews and Edward Dahlberg.McElroy always defeated me, though, and I tried more than once.

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 11d

You will want to read this amazing book by Patrick Leigh Fermor and then its two sequels. He did exactly that.

1 11

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 20d

Ilya Kuryakin!

1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 20d

Thank you!

1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 20d

This lovingly restored early fifties Studebaker (we think) makes us smile every time we pass the body shop that is doing the work. It has charm to spare -- we call it "Cupcake.

1 6

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 20d

What say you, Alan Dershowitz?

Max Phillips @signaltype.bsky.social · 20d

It's over. No way Mandami comes back from this one.

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 21d

I published a book about classical thought by Ingrid at Doubleday. She was probably the most gracious and lovely author I ever worked with.

1

Gerald Howard @ghoward1950.bsky.social · 21d

It takes nothing away from this very great book to say that many people, myself included, think that SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION is even better. What a talent.

Greg Fields @gregfieldsauthor.bsky.social · 22d

Ken Kesey (1935-2001) While at Stanford, he took part in a government research project on hallucinogenics. The LSD he was given stayed in his system, and one night he saw a vision of a tall Indian sweeping a floor. The result was 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝑭𝒍𝒆𝒘 𝑶𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑪𝒖𝒄𝒌𝒐𝒐'𝒔 𝑵𝒆𝒔𝒕.

#booksky
#writingommunity
#authors

3