This story of two decades of a marriage documents a catalog of changes accepted and changes refused, between two people who grew up in the Forties and Fifties. By the Seventies, the world had changed and so had they. And so had the marriage. The uncommon word eachother is the main topic of this book—the relationship of two people in which every action or thought, whether expressed or not, affects the partner. Eachother is precious when it works, treacherous when both feel trapped with the other. The Last American Housewife is the second volume in the Marty Series, following The Family Secret. The third volume will be Period Pieces, the post-marriage years.

The Last American Housewife: pieces of a marriage

Literature & Fiction

Hill, Eleanore

Literary

Mudborn Press

Rarely do we find an honest account of incest in the news. Though it has long been taboo in almost every culture, and for sound biological reasons, the occurrences of incest continue in many families and communities. Having a rational conversation about it, however, is difficult to achieve. Do not expect lurid accounts of threats and torture and kinky S&M from this book. This story is told with names changed, from the point of view of the girl—a straightforward account of the relationship of father and daughter over nearly twenty years. As she grew into young adulthood, the father became protective, but not possessive. And the girl-becoming-woman began to understand her strengths, and to test them—eventually to break free, marry and have a productive life of her own. For most of the time, the relationship was a secret from the rest of the family, and certainly from the rest of the world. Eleanore Hill has chosen to stand up and proclaim herself a whole person of her own, and to share her experience publicly. Few have had the courage to do so, which makes this narrative especially valuable. In fact, when the book first came out in 1985, it garnered the Rhodora Prize, and was picked up by one of the major publishers, at a time when incest was scarcely talked about. These days, with digital publishing, many more writers have committed their stories to print, emboldened by Eleanore Hill’s forthrightness with the “secret.” Some publishers simply aim to titillate with the topic, hoping to benefit from prurient curiosity. For them, there will always be an audience. For the more serious-minded, this three-dimensional account of the topic brings it alive in a real sense, not as a cautionary tale or a scold, but to see, as it were, behind the headlines, as a human story that needs to be told, and told with integrity.

The Family Secret: A Personal Account of Incest

The Deadword Dictionary was first written more than twenty years ago. I’m making some changes, based on further refinement of the concept, and also including an “Iffy” section. Here are the rules for the selection of Deadwords: Orphans, words used in only a single common expression, with no flexibility, such as “yore” as in “days of yore.” Faux amis, words borrowed from another language but misunderstood or misapplied (à la mode) Obsolete words or phrases Iffy words—you decide whether they still have  weight in today’s language. You might call this the rearview mirror perspective, with a “huh” under one’s breath. Yeah? They really said that? The English language is like a kitchen sponge: it picks up all the tiny pieces of we-don’t-know-what but we need a word, so we’ll just use this stray one from we-don’t-care-where. But when did you last see a “doublet” or “spitoon” or use “whilom”—why keep them around? A little housecleaning is in order here. Got your favorite overworked obsolete nugget? Send it in to bandanna@cox.net.

The Deadword Dictionary: A Book of Outdated Words

Reference

Newborn, Sasha

Words, Language & Grammar

Ossian Legends

MACPHERSON, JAMES

Poetry

Among the last of her poetic career, The Babylonian Captivity is an allegory describing the conditions of the Ukrainians under Russian influence at the end of the Nineteenth Century—which is not unlike the pressures Ukraine is under in 2014. This text is modernized from an earlier translation. Lesya Ukrainka is a pseudonym of Larisa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka, perhaps made necessary in the beginning because the Ukrainian language was not permitted in publications at the time. The story is of Jews, not all of the same persuasion, in exile in Babylon, in woeful conditions. The main character is Eleazar, a singer and harpist, who is challenged by the others of his community for serving the Babylonian masters with his songs. He defends his activities and helps to redefine the situation they are all in. The "play" is designed for reading rather than staging in a theater, and is in looser format than strictly poetic lines, although Eleazar does perform a few songs in measured lines. The reason for publishing it now is to provide for a wider audience a historical dimension to current affairs in one part of the world rarely portrayed in European fiction.

The Babylonian Captivity

Ukrainka, Lesya

Christina Rossetti's Goblin Market is a fable of two sisters who encounter the goblin merchants, who offer tempting fruits with beguiling voices, begging them to try, to taste, to touch. A friend had succumbed to their alluring charm before, and then, having tasted, gradually wasted away to death. One sister heeds the warning signs and begs the other sister to follow her home and ignore the beckoning calls of the insistent, persistent goblins who promise so much. But the second sister lingers to know more, and, even when admitting that she has no money, they accept just a lock of her golden hair for payment. She tastes of the fruits and is delighted. Not only is it delicious, but she wants more and more. When finally she is satisfied, she returns home, perfectly safe -- so she thought. But day by day, the yearning after more of the marvelous fruit sets in, but she doesn't hear the siren voices of the goblins ever again. Her sister, however, who was cautious, does hear the voices, and recognizes that she will have to do something or she will lose her sister as they lost their friend. She emboldens herself to go to the goblins, tosses them a coin, but does not bite the fruit. She is assaulted, wheedled, poked, argued with -- but she is stubborn. Returning, she is able to save her sister from the consequences of the temptation. Although she was "right," she put herself in danger in order to reclaim her sister. Christina and her brother, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, were members of the Pre-Rafaelite movement, in the course of which, D.G. translated a number of Italian poets who were friends or acquaintances of the young Dante Alighieri, and published their work, primarily love poems, as Dante and His Circle (www.createspace.com/4024060) -- somewhat resembling the artistic kinship of the Pre-Rafaelites.

Goblin Market

Children's Books

ROSSETTI, CHRISTINA

Fairy Tales, Folk Tales & Myths

A vocabulary of Yiddish terms, common expressions, and proverbs. Many Yiddish terms have entered the English language, describing character or emotion (usually displeasure) that have no ready equivalent, such as klutz, kvetch, shmoose, or kibbitz. Yiddish as a language grew out of Medieval German and Hebrew, and spread through Eastern Europe among Ashkenazi Jews. With the worldwide spread of Jewry in many countries, Yiddish plays two roles: as a language unto itself, and as a "lending" language for terms and attitudes about business, sexuality, or human relations.

Yiddish, you say? Nu?: A Yiddish Wordbook

Oliver Goldsmith's poem celebrates the simple life of rural villages or small towns, but laments the incursion of rich landowners who crowd out the vital peasant life. In addition, The Logicians Refuted is another short poem by Goldsmith, perhaps playfully challenging the "superiority" of humans over animals.

The Deserted Village

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER

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