This is what magic in the day-to-day looks like, wrote Clare Dwyer Hogg, as spoken by actor Stephen Rea, on the Irish border seen through the cluster that is Brexit. Saul Leiter knew something about magic in the day-to-day, just look at these pictures. The legendary UK based lit-band, Dark Angels, has a new album out — Dark Angels on Writing. Early reviews indicate their latest is a scorcher. Since we’re talking about Europe, and magic, and whether to stay or whether to go, here’s Timothy Snyder with some historical context. “Imagination,” said Einstein, “is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” To the 5CT subscriber who wrote to say, ‘I miss 5CT,’ thank you. Me too.

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1.

Saul Leiter, photographer

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{ snow, 1960 (c) Saul Leiter }

{ subway car 4435 1950 (c) Saul Leiter }

{ jean 1948 (c) Saul Leiter }

{ boy, 1950 (c) Saul Leiter }

 

Saul Leiter started shooting color and black-and-white street photography in New York in the 1940s. He had no formal training in photography, but the genius of his early work was quickly acknowledged by Edward Steichen, who included Leiter in two important MoMA shows in the 1950s. MoMA’s 1957 conference “Experimental Photography in Color” featured 20 color photographs by Leiter. Read on here >

{ New York 1950 (c) Saul Leiter }

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2.

Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe

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Patrick Radden Keefe is a New Yorker writer of uncommon instinct, talent, grace and empathy. A couple of years back, he did what many writers do; he read a whopper of an obituary (Dolours Price, Defiant IRA Bomber, Dies at 61)  and followed his nose. That led him down an extraordinary path, to a murder mystery, a thicket of stories, and to the Troubles. Hard to imagine a more challenging, complicated story to tell. It’s a masterpiece. Read it, you won’t believe it. That’s Dolours on the cover of his book. At the end of her life, she fingered Gerry Adams as the man who gave the orders. She took on Margaret Thatcher and won. And, she became the wife of the actor Stephen Rea, seen below in a Brexit video. For a good podcast on this, go to Longform>

Excerpt from Say Nothing:

Just after lunchtime, at around 2 p.m., a phone rang at the headquarters of The Times of London. A young woman named Elizabeth Curtis, who had just started working on the news desk at the paper, picked up the call. She heard a man’s voice, speaking very quickly, with a thick Irish accent. At first she couldn’t make out what he was saying, then she realized that he was reeling off the descriptions and locations of a series of cars. He spoke for just over a minute, and, though she was still confused, she transcribed as much as she could. Before hanging up, the man said, “The bombs will go off in one hour.

3.

Hard Border: Clare Dwyer Hogg & Stephen Rea

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To Clare Dwyer Hogg, playwright, poet and journalist, who wrote this absolutely jaw-dropping piece on Brexit, we give thanks. “We’re holding our breath again, because we know that chance and hope, come in forms like steam and smoke.”

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4.

Dark Angels on Writing

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The UK writing collective known as Dark Angels (where does that bloody name come from?) has published a new book, Dark Angels on Writing: Changing Lives With Words, aimed squarely at the legions of companies, businesses and writers who want to write beautifully and better. This is a very special book with appearances by such writers as Michelle Nicol, Nick Asbury, Tim Rich, Rowenna Roberts, Larry Vincent, Therese Kieran, Rob Williams, Becca Magnus, Faye Sharpe, Jonathan Holt, Nick Parker, Henrietta McKervey, and many others. Get your copy here >

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5.

Timothy Snyder Speaks

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Timothy Snyder is a Yale historian and one of the people I look to for help in understanding what’s going on in the world. He wrote On Tyranny in 2017 after the car crash of 2016. This video — The European Union —  is part of a series of 16 or so videos he’s posted on YouTube. These are mini-lectures that he uses to air out ideas he’s thinking through. Episode 1: Russia Defeats America.

5CT recommends his latest book, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America.

 

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That’s it. Thank you.