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Strange bedfellows...

A Lonely Rage by Bobby Seale. And speaking of bedfellows... Bobby Seale provides graphic detail of both his sexual awakenings and his political awakenings in this autobiography. For those too young to remember, Seale was a co-founder of the Black Panther movement back in the 1960's and a part of the infamous Chicago Seven trial following the Democratic convention riots there. He was defendant #8... and if you were around at the time, I don't think you will have forgotten the sickening sensation of seeing a black man chained and gagged in the courtroom because he asked for his lawyer. I read this when Seale visited our campus and was very moved to meet him and hear him speak. The story of his life is told frankly, plainly and provides a fascinating eyewitness account of perilous times.


I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron. On a lighter, more humorous note, Nora Ephron and I are growing old. Women "of a certain age" will find plenty to make them laugh out loud as Nora runs down the difficulties of reading the pill bottle, finding anything in your nasty purse, beauty regimes that grow more laborious and expensive, and the true fear of the "empty nesters"... your moved-out children are the only ones who know how to use the remote. This is a light, relaxing read, a little Erma Bombeck-ish but on a more elegant, Manhattan scale. I am still wondering why Ephron's mother told her to "never buy a red coat," but perhaps the answer will come to me when I reach 60.