About Don Silver

Visit Don Silver's Website

Colbert on Bush

on May 5th, 2006 in News by | Comments Off on Colbert on Bush

Oddly enough, the most incisive and maybe the most inspired take on George Bush’s abomination of a Presidency was delivered last week by comedian Stephen Colbert in the presence of King George himself and a room full of suckups and make-pretend journalists. The skit at the end is weak, but…

Continue reading...

Peak Oil

on March 30th, 2006 in Uncategorized by | Comments Off on Peak Oil

It’s difficult to live in these times and this culture without feeling like one is being constantly bullshitted and manipulated. Reading these books, I actually felt slightly relieved, as if finally, somebody was being straight with me about something I suspected, but couldn’t prove; which is, we are squandering the resources on this planet, and over-consuming in an unsustainable way.

Continue reading...

Mythology

on March 19th, 2006 in Essays & Reviews by | Comments Off on Mythology

I spent this weekend at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara attending a conference about “modern dilemmas, mythic sense and ancient imagination” called Leaping Between the Horns. The speaker, Michael Meade, is a wily and wiry fellow who’s been stalking the ancient stories about humankind for the past 35 years….

Continue reading...

Road Trip

on December 7th, 2005 in Writing by | Comments Off on Road Trip

I read last night at an independent bookstore in Atlanta called Chapter 11*, which would be a funny name except they filed for bankruptcy a month or two ago, just before the new laws went into effect (see my blog entry, New Bankruptcy Laws, 9/22/05). A friendly but rather glum-looking…

Continue reading...

Happy Vasectomy

on November 15th, 2005 in Essays & Reviews by | Comments Off on Happy Vasectomy

I decided to do something a little different for my birthday this year. What with the nomination of Judge Alito to the Supreme Court, I figured the days of elective reproductory surgery without the approval of my spouse may be coming to an end (you’ll just have to excuse the…

Continue reading...

Impressions at Week 9

on October 28th, 2005 in Writing by | Comments Off on Impressions at Week 9

As much as I’ve enjoyed the publicity phase, I’m OK with it ending and getting back to writing. Really. There was an initial rush, a surge of satisfaction that accompanied the publication – seeing it for the first time in a store, getting a review, being interviewed — and some…

Continue reading...

Rove Wins McCarthy Award

on October 16th, 2005 in News by | Comments Off on Rove Wins McCarthy Award

Oct. 16, 2005. Washington, D.C. In a lavish ceremony at the Ritz Carlton last night, Karl Rove was awarded the Joseph McCarthy Prize for Patriotism, easily defeating nominees Louis Farrakhan and Tom DeLay. Mr. Rove, grinning from ear to ear, joined prior winners, including George Wallace, Barry Goldwater and Richard…

Continue reading...

Housing Boom Pretty Much Over

on October 15th, 2005 in News by | Comments Off on Housing Boom Pretty Much Over

Washington, D.C. Residential real estate markets across the U.S. have softened significantly in recent weeks, as interest rates continue to rise and uncertainty over the economy grows. “There’s starting to be a lot of properties available in almost every city,” says Justin Fromley, a broker with Coldwell Banker, “and the…

Continue reading...

No Direction Home

on October 9th, 2005 in Flotsum & Jetsam by | Comments Off on No Direction Home

No Direction Home

Continue reading...

The Sixties: From Counter-Cultural to Cultural Counter-Revolution

on October 3rd, 2005 in Flotsum & Jetsam by | 2 Comments

At the height of the counter-cultural revolution in the Sixties, in what was meant to be an act of protest, a bomb planted by Fergus Keane, a character in my first novel Backward-Facing Man, literally blows up in an innocent young man’s hands. Keane, who is forced to flee society…

Continue reading...