Steve Cotler Steve Cotler

Irrepressibly True Tales

One man's squint at the metaphorical signposts, songbirds, soapboxes, street musicians, and hot dog stands of life. Criticism, lyricism, polemics, performance, and making change…all with mustard.

Teaching Contract Bridge to Intelligent Women

— 3:16 pm · One comment

I learned contract bridge at 13 and played through grad school. Then came almost 40 years without a bid. But for the last year or so, I’ve been teaching bridge to a group of women. It has been a particularly satisfying endeavor for two reasons: 1) they are members of AAUW—American Association of University Women—and quite intelligent; and 2) the process enables me to recapture what I once knew and long since sequestered in remote memory recesses.

My weekly practice is to prepare a few hands Continue reading “Teaching Contract Bridge to Intelligent Women” →

What Would MLK Do?

— 11:53 am · Comments Off on What Would MLK Do?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at Mason Temple, Memphis, TN on April 3, 1968Just a few days ago, Jeh C. Johnson, general counsel for the Department of Defense, gave a speech at the Pentagon in recognition of Martin Luther King Day. Toward the end of his talk, Johnson mused about what the non-violent preacher, a man who railed ceaselessly against the Vietnam War, would feel about our ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were he alive today.

It is hard to imagine a more wrong-headed analysis of Rev. King’s philosophy of non-violence. After correctly noting King’s unwavering stand against the Vietnam War, Johnson loses his way. Quoting from the “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech given the day before King was assassinated, Johnson mistakenly likens King’s reference to the  compassionate aid of the Good Samaritan to the Shock and Awe of a mighty armed force. He equates giving aid to waging war.

Continue reading “What Would MLK Do?” →

Mark Twain and the N-word

— 11:55 pm · One comment

newsouth bkRecently, NewSouth Books announced the publication of a new version of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. Bowdlerized by Auburn University’s Dr. Alan Gribben, Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, is described by NewSouth thusly:

In a radical departure from standard editions, Twain’s most famous novels are published here as the continuous narrative that the author originally envisioned. More controversial will be the decision by the editor, noted Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben, to eliminate the pejorative racial labels that Twain employed in his effort to write realistically about social attitudes of the 1840s.

Not surprisingly, Professor Gribben’s decision to replace the word nigger with slave has engendered controversy.

Continue reading “Mark Twain and the N-word” →

Profile: Bert James, Mountain of a Man

— 2:36 pm · View all 2 comments

Albert's Place dressed up for the moviesBert James is a huge, bearded man who can build, drive, or fix anything. When I arrived at his place five miles north of I-90 near Kingston, Idaho, I expected to and did see him astride one of him many machines. We first met when he approached me in 1994 during the filming of Heartwood and offered to help.

“What can you do?” I asked him.

“Anything,” he responded…and I discovered it was no lie. Continue reading “Profile: Bert James, Mountain of a Man” →

Blue Highway Travelogue–Fossil, Oregon

— 4:12 pm · Comments Off on Blue Highway Travelogue–Fossil, Oregon

After Crater Lake, only 33 miles in circumference, was circumnavigated, we crossed the Pumice Desert (a patch of treeless scratch less than a half-mile across) and flew north toward the belly of Oregon. Long, rolling rise-and-falls, seer-suckered by sagebrush, scruff and cattle, persevered on US 97 until we took the small road at Madras, drawn eastward by a tiny brown square on our AAA map labeled Clarno Unit of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. We had purchased a Golden Eagle year-long National Parks pass at Lassen, Continue reading “Blue Highway Travelogue–Fossil, Oregon” →

Steve with students at an author event

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