Author Archives: jillbpearlman

Eternal Memories in the Eternal City

Posted on April 4, 2021 by jillbpearlman

Eternal memories from the Eternal City, Rome, 2018, from the weeks we were lucky enough to spend in Testaccio. That year, religious holidays fell at the same time — Passover Seder was finishing as Easter bells began to ring.   In … Continue reading →

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Speak, Kafka: What the Maxwell House Haggadah didn’t share

Posted on March 26, 2021 by jillbpearlman

The Jewish way of telling things is famously contentious and fractured; stories get started, then start again differently (doesn’t an Origin story imply a single origin? Think again!)  The surface is not linear, stories grab you, then leave a key part … Continue reading →

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That Old Keen Darkness

Posted on March 14, 2021 by jillbpearlman

Rooster consciousness,the rooster that sees light in darknessrooster announces the light while submerged in darknessfrom the deepest place as it’s starting to turn soon we’ll be in light, you can feel itit teases, it plays in spring dazzlethat exhilaration, that … Continue reading →

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Topsy Turvy Holidays during an Inverted Year

Posted on February 28, 2021 by jillbpearlman

Welcome to the Dionysian spring holidays — Mardi Gras, Carnivale, Purim, falling in love — that turn things upside down during a year in which everything has been turned upside down.  It makes for fascinating spatial — and metaspatial — … Continue reading →

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World Valentine

Posted on February 14, 2021 by jillbpearlman

This Valentine’s Day, my object of love is the world, and what kind of a clear manageable object is that?   I could narrow it down, focus, make it a simple object, like an oyster, and use all of my … Continue reading →

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BHLIG!! At-home Peace and Conflict Studies

Posted on February 7, 2021 by jillbpearlman

This morning I started doing my own peace and conflict studies before tea, before I was awake. I’d startled myself when I realized that the word “conflict” shelters “con” — a warm and fuzzy prefix meaning “together”  or “with.”  I … Continue reading →

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What Augurs, Biden?

Posted on January 24, 2021 by jillbpearlman

A smart observer once said about our new president: “If you ask me who the luckiest person I know, it’s Joe Biden.  If you ask me who the unluckiest person I know, it’s Joe Biden.”  As a lover of paradox, … Continue reading →

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Stuck in the Stalls of History

Posted on January 10, 2021 by jillbpearlman

In Roberto Bolaño’s Savage Detectives, his sprawling novel of poets, revolutionaries and Pinochet, I remember most vividly the scene of a poet trapped in a stall of the bathroom as riot police entered her university.   Where else would she … Continue reading →

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2020: Opera Extraordinaire

Posted on January 3, 2021 by jillbpearlman
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Solstice, burning bright

Posted on December 20, 2020 by jillbpearlman

Solstice, winter, covid: we are close to the dark.   Those winter days that swing between flat gray and blindingly bright gray work a subtle palette.  During insomniac nights — at 3am, at 4am — I am close to the … Continue reading →

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