Aimee Semple McPherson preaching at her Angelus Temple, Los Angeles My mother once told me that her mother, Jeanette, had named her Amy after the celebrity evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. I didn’t give this statement much thought at the time, but it would have been odd that my conflicted Jewish mother had inherited something from a Pentecostal evangelist.  When I did think about it, however, I figured that religion had nothing to do with Jeanette’s choice. In Jeanette’s wo

It's funny how you can live in a society whose wealth was built upon the slave trade and not be aware of it even though the legacy of the trade is layered in the language, social relations, and racialized prejudices of the present-day population. No, I'm not referring to the American South. I'm reflecting on the time I spent learning about Swahili language and culture on the East African coast. My introduction, through a two-month intensive Swahili language program for gradua

Marion Michelle with FIAF colleagues, 1957 I've written elsewhere of how my cousin Marion Michelle probably made cinematic history filming the first guerilla documentary, Indonesia Calling , for the famous Dutch filmmaker, Joris Ivens , in 1945. This was well before I was born. Marion was the same generation as my mother — they were first cousins — although of course we were cousins as well. Since 1950, Marion had settled as an expatriate in Paris. I lived in Paris on two di

Robert Philipson discusses his experience learning Swahili

In January of 1975, I was lying on top of a water tower in the middle of Africa. It was a fine, warm night. A full moon had scrubbed the sky of its spangle of stars. Stretched out next to me was a handsome African man, one month younger than I. His name was Yves D-, a Central African English teacher at the high school that used to be serviced by the defunct water tower, which served as our perch. We were both stoned on grass I had purchased over the Christmas break in Bangui,

L to R: Human #1, MAXIMILLION, Human #2, GRANDMA, Human #3, HAMLET, Human #4 It was a good life for a dog. We had returned to our mesa,...

Shoga Films creator Robert Philipson reflects on his successful first film festival submission "Ma Rainey's Lesbian Licks"

Robert Philipson attempts to save him and his daughter from eternal damnation

Born in 1950, I knew about Richard Nixon from the dawn of consciousness -- and he was synonymous with Evil. I inherited my contempt of...

Alice Philipson - Berkeley based solo practitioner, 1987 In the 1980s, queer lawyers were still reluctant to come out publicly. They...

Watts Rebellion, Los Angeles, California, August 13, 1965 Having grown up swathed in unrecognized white privilege (i.e. The Fifties), I...

Raising her family in a newly-created suburban neighborhood on a Pasadena mesa during the 1950s, my mother always knew she was a square...

Christmas is upon us, and I glide through the capitalist frenzy and social anxiety with frictionless insouciance. I buy no Christmas...

Lady Hamlet and her humans, 1961 It wasn’t easy for a dog used to the freedom of the San Gabriel Mountains to accommodate herself to the...

The young ulpanist in the rose greenhouse.   Aliyah. In its Biblical context, “aliyah” is a Hebrew word meaning “to rise up” and...

Four Jews The closest equivalent we have to the N-word as an ethnic slur is “kike,” which, while certainly meant to be wounding and...

The closest equivalent we have to the N-word as an ethnic slur is “kike,” which, while certainly meant to be wounding and offensive,...

Folsom Street Fair 2019 --- not bad for 69  Way back in 1981, I was living in Washington, DC, with my first lover. I was only three years...

In 1954, Jean Guyard, a Frenchman working as a civil servant in the tax department of the French Republic, married my cousin Marion...

I'm a poet And my feet know it. They’re longfellas. This sophomoric ditty illustrates the dilemma of a poetic practice which cuts...