Poem: Song of the Diner Cashier
By Michael Lind
We’re proud to be featuring Michael Lind’s work at Liberty Island. This is the third of eight poems.
Mambo Non-Italiano Episode II
By Tom Cosentino
I hope you enjoyed the first episode of Mambo Non-Italiano. I left you with the cliffhanger, the question of whether Cher gets an Italian pass for her role in Moonstruck. Moonstruck is a great Italian movie but did she do all that is necessary for the Don to give her a pass?
Desist
Sometimes surrendering to God requires stopping.
By Chris Queen
A couple of Sundays ago, our Creative Arts pastor Scott England preached a sermon based on Psalm 46 and one of his songs entitled “Let Go.” Scott shared his powerful testimony of how God healed him after a terrible car accident and how he came to faith in Jesus.
An Interview with ‘Flintlock Fantasy’ Author Stanley Wheeler
By Tamara Wilhite
Stanley Wheeler is the author of the Tomahawks and Dragon Fire series. This alternate history “flintlock fantasy” series is set in an American Revolutionary War where dragons have come back after a century. He’s also written a number of books in other genres, but more on that in the interview itself.
Funeral Women
By Michael Lind
As we noted last week, we’re proud to be featuring Michael Lind’s work at Liberty Island. This is the second of eight poems.
The Beginning of Mambo Non-Italiano
By Tom Cosentino
Welcome to my new Blog, Mambo Non-Italiano. In today’s crazy cancel culture, where cartoon characters have to be ethnically cleansed and there are casting quotas where Henry VIII could be played by an Asian woman, who self-identifies as something else, well you know where I’m going. I wanted to add my take on this hotly contested debate, in a subtler, more relaxed environment, like my Uncle’s talking about which jockey’s were on the take at the local Harness track.
A few things upfront, I am not on a mission. I have not social wrong I want to make right. I got the idea for this blog from watching the very fine movie Green Book. Viggo Mortensen was nominated for Best Actor but lost to an Englishman playing an Englishman. Mortensen played the real-life Italian Tony Lip. Mortensen was great in the role all except for one small problem; he’s not Italian. He doesn’t look Italian. He can’t make Pasta Fagioli. He acted Italian but isn’t that supposed to be something we aren’t supposed to be doing now? So, I thought I would blog about the roles of Italian characters that were played by non-Italians.
The Heart of Jesus
Sometimes we need to reframe the way we think about our Savior.
By Chris Queen
I get people telling me all the time, “You should read such-and-such book.” I don’t always give in when someone recommends a book to me. I’m not opposed to book recommendations, but I know what I like and I’m not going to read something unless it fits within the bounds of what I like. (There’s also a good chance that I’ll forget the book title and never follow up, but that’s a whole different issue for another day.)
An Interview with Robert Arvanitis on the Economics of Lord of the Rings
By Tamara Wilhite
I was in an online debate on artificial intelligence when Robert Arvanitis brought up something he’d written referencing Lord of the Rings. From the title “The Orcs that ran away”, I thought it was a short fantasy story. In reality, it was a financial paper on the economic impact of the production of the Lord of the Rings movies in New Zealand and how AI was used to solve it.
