excerpt from "The Emperor of Ocean Park"

by Stephen L. Carter

So now it is my turn to be offended… on behalf of the race: my vision is suddenly overlaid with bright splotches of red, a thing that happens from time to time when my connection to the darker nation and its oppression is most powerfully stimulated. The room fades around me. Through the red curtain, I still see, albeit dimly, these ambitious black kids in their ambitious little suits… vying for the favor of my brother-in-law because he is a managing director a Goldman Sachs, and I suddenly understand the passion of the many black nationalists of the sixties who opposed affirmative action, warning that it would strip the community of the best among its potential leaders, sending them off to the most prestigious colleges, and turning them into… well, into young corporate apparatchiks in Brooks Brothers suits, desperate for the favor of powerful white capitalists…. I am the few. My wife is the few. My sister is the few…. And the world is such a bright, angry red.

Pause for 1 minute

from Andrew Rosenthal

Being human, we are in love with and defeated by transition. Some years time jumps, and some years it can bearly put one foot in front of the other. We can do nothing about it either way, except to pause and take notice. Today may be no more than a slight elision in your calendar, or it may feel like the wall the test dummies are always crashing into for science. It isn't much of a consummation, and it really won't do for a prologue either. But here it is - another minute, another day, another year pivoting around us.