Just Kids Wins National Book Award—Woolly Mammoth Reflects On Life And Loss
As I noted a few days ago, Extinct, a Woolly Mammoth, is the newest contributor to Texas Liberal.
Extinct has been reading of late Just Kids by the performer and artist Patti Smith.
This book tells the story of Ms. Smith’s youthful friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe.
Mr. Mapplethorpe, a well-known photographer, died of AIDS at age 43 in 1989.
As a Woolly Mammoth, Extinct knows all about the passing of time and about the value of longtime relationships.
Longtime friendships offer a measure of reply to death.
There is at least an illusion of permanence when someone knows us as we change with the years.
There is also memory.
The depth of memory when we know a person very well after many years allows us to transcend the passing time.
Just Kids was recently selected as the winner of the National Book Award.
I suggest that you read Just Kids. Just Kids is an instructive book about life, relationships, and death.
Extinct feels the same way about this book. Extinct has seen a lot of life and death.
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Welcome To Texas Liberal
Texas Liberal is a blog of politics and political history.
My name is Neil Aquino. Here is my profile.
I can be reached at naa618@att.net.
Additional focuses of the blog are books, art, poetry, personal relationships and, also, sea life and marine mammals.
( The picture above is of the Houston Ship Channel. A narrow channel can lead to a wide sea.)
The signature post of this blog is the Martin Luther King Reading & Reference List. This list is the best of it’s kind on the web.
Another good post is my reciting the words to the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts on Galveston Island, Texas as a ship passes behind.
I live in Houston, Texas and I do sometimes write about political issues in Houston and in Texas.
I also often write about my former hometown of Cincinnati, and about the great beach city of Galveston, Texas.
I define liberalism as a role for government in the economy to help make life more fair, and a broad acceptance of people regardless of who they are.
This is why it says “All People Matter” at the top of the blog.
A blog grows one reader at a time. If you like what you read here, please consider forwarding the link.
Texas Liberal began regular posting on July 25, 2006.
I also blog at the Houston Chronicle as one of eight featured political bloggers, and on Where’s The Outrage? which posts out of North Carolina.
Thanks for reading Texas Liberal.
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Texas Liberal 
I will definitely read Just Kids.
Wish I could link your daily posts to my Face Book and Twitter accounts. I did manage to post; The Fact That Texas House Speaker Straus Is Jewish Is An Issue With Some Conservatives. I’m personally very concerned about the Tea Party in Texas and their Texas Republican support.
Mil Gracias,
Luis
Your fellow Cincinnati expat loves this page!
I’ll be following+
Dave
Thanks for these kind comments.
I need to make the blog more accessible to be networked–or whatever the right term might be. Maybe someday i’ll get around to some of the improvements I’d like to make.
You may already know this, but in wordpress if you go to Settings and then click on Sharing, you can add facebook, twitter, and email buttons to the bottom of every post, making it really easy for readers to share your posts with their friends (or their disgruntled Republican family members).
I’m looking forward to reading this book. Thanks for the suggestion.
Sarah—I had no idea. Thank you very much.
[…] new contributor to Texas Liberal, a woolly mammoth named Extinct, noted that Just Kids by Patti Smith was the winner of the National Book Award for 2010. Just Kids an account of Ms. Smith’s youthful relationship with the photographer Robert […]
Pingback by Eye on Williamson » TPA Blog Round Up (November 22, 2010) | November 22, 2010
[…] new contributor to Texas Liberal, a woolly mammoth named Extinct, noted that Just Kids by Patti Smith was the winner of the National Book Award for 2010. Just Kids is an account of Ms. Smith’s youthful relationship with the photographer Robert […]
Pingback by You Are Going To Have To Get Involved Yourself—Texas Progressive Alliance Round-Up « Texas Liberal | November 28, 2010