Babel: The multilingual, multicultural online journal and community of arts and ideas

by: James Schwartz
4.2.07 marked the 6th month anniversary of the Nickle Mines, PA. school shootings. On 10.2.06 Charles Carl Roberts IV, shot ten little girls (age 7-13), killing five in the rural schoolhouse. The tragedy made international headlines including the Old Order Amish community reaching out to the killer’s family, bringing food and uniting in [...]

I always sit and wonder why the world is just an unfair place…then something hit me…we were all born on a different day, time and way.
Some were born in the rural areas where even the talk of a dispensary is like a dream hence it is never mentioned, others while their mothers struggled to rush [...]

[lang_en]My take on Obama as a multi-racial candidate (this was written in response to a reporter’s questions to me on this topic):
So far, Obama has mainly been seen as a “Black candidate”–but as one whose “Blackness” is problematic because his father is not African American but Kenyan, and his mother is White. What is the [...]

[lang_en]
“Shih” is an insightful, elegant kind of knowledge from Chinese into American English
–Howard Rheingold, They Have a Word for It
This article fosters an awareness of cross-cultural issues inherent in language communication through our perception of the world, non-verbally or verbally whenever we speak, listen, read, and write. Language communication offers cross-cultural insights and [...]

[lang_en]
PREFACE
During March 2000, I studied Art and Architectural History while visiting and traveling in Spain. I made a Video Film pilgrimage to Spain’s castles, palaces, cathedrals, monasteries, convents, mosques, holy sites, and museums in order to study Art and Architecture of designated UNESCO National Heritage Centers. “As time travelers, we were embarked on a [...]

[lang_en]July 5th, 2008 Brussels
My Brussel’s host, Alvilda, through some odd connection, was invited to the US Embassy’s “U.S. Independence Day 2008” part on Friday, July 4th. The invitation read:
Sam Fox
Ambassador of the United States of America to Belgium,
and
Christopher W. Murray
Charge d’Affaires of the U.S. Mission to the European Union
invite you
to celebrate the 232nd Anniversary [...]

Formidable: A Non Fiction Portrait of Chelsea Del Ray
 by: James Schwartz
This essay (composed May, 2005) has origins that originate five years ago. I was twenty-two, spending endless nights on the Kalamazoo club / cabaret scene with my best friend / hag / future co-author April Hoskins, performing cabaret and reveling in the local color.
I’d met [...]

Siena’s biggest event, Il Palio, is happening this Wednesday. The festivities have begun, and today horses were raced for contrada assignment. There are 17 contradas, or neighborhoods, in Siena that compete twice a year, every year on July 2nd and August 16, in a horse race in Piazza del Campo. Due to [...]

Ulzii has sold two yurts already–real, whole room, boiled wool felt yurts–for only 3000 Euros each.  The full sized yurts are advertized by a much smaller table-top model that looks like an interesting child’s toy.
Ulzii, who is Mongolian and was trained as a water engineer, has the most lovely cashmere shop–which is the most dangerous [...]

Alvilda was a little concerned that Ivana, her friend from her studies at Fletcher over a decade ago who now also lives in Brussels, and I might be two too many alpha females to get along well, but that worry proved unfounded. Ivana is Croatian, and like Alvilda, is interested in international social justice [...]

Hi Folks,
I guess it is time for a little self-introduction. Malcolm Lawrence, Founder/CEO & Editor-In-Chief of towerofbabel.com noticed that I had joined his Tower of Babel group on InterNations.com so he invited me to blog here.
I am very new to blogging–my only experience being a travel blog I’ve been keeping for about 3 weeks on [...]

[lang_en]To Be “Hapa” or Not to Be “Hapa”: What to Name Mixed Asian Americans?
Preface: I have been struggling for several years with this apparently un-resolvable issue: what to do about “Hapa”? I finally decided I had to start writing about it, had to start engaging the dialog. The essays and talks I have been [...]

On a whim today, after exploring the storybook cuteness of Brussel’s Grand Place (various winding cobblestone side streets, delightfully whimsical facades, etc.), I happened by the Royal Museums of the Beaux-Arts.
I was thinking more about eating lunch at the Museum Cafe than anything else, but I was drawn in by the Rubens Room. It is [...]

I met a Brazilian friend for wine yesterday before we headed to the Festa Europea della Musica. It was a musical festival that had 15 stages set up all around Siena’s medieval center. We made it to 5 of them. It was fantastic!
The evening was warm, there were swarms of cheerful music loving [...]

Before I begin, let me say thank you for the warm welcome I have received here at Babel.  I appreciate the comments greatly.

There is an outdoor concert series going on all summer long here at this amazing park that is just a10-15 minute walk from my apartment. Last week we saw Isaac Hayes, and, in [...]

I am a writer in Brooklyn, New York. I write short fiction, artist biographies, press releases, and now, thanks to the gracious invitation from Malcom, I write a blog. I was trained at Indiana University (in my home state) as an elementary teacher, and while I love those little maniac students, I feel the need [...]

(For Part 1 of this post, click here.)
The other day in the New York Times, I read an article that made me a little sad. In 1993 an at-the-time closeted, lesbian Lisa Sherman attended a diversity workshop that her company Bell Atlantic hosted. During one exercise participants were asked to write out stereotypes [...]

Ciao from Siena, Italy!
The weather here has been very strange. It’s like a San Francisco winter: chilly and wet. The natives say that this weather is not normal for Tuscany this time of the year.
No matter. I’m here to live, and a little foul weather won’t scare me away. At [...]

All talk and no action. And that’s a good thing in Richard Linklater’s ‘Waking Life’, a beautiful live action rotoscoped film that floats between sleep and wakefulness, life and death. The characters talk about life as they experience it: existential, suicidal, dreamlike…. Philosophy at its accessible best. And it has Ethan Hawke and a host [...]

This has to be one of the most fascinating documentaries I have ever seen. Bennet Miller’s debut documentary ‘The Cruise’ follows New York tour guide Timothy “Speed” Levitch, on his tours and in his life, as he talks about his greatest love and obsession: New York.
If and when I visit New York, I hope he [...]

Hello, community!
Malcolm has invited me to post here because I would like to share some news and keep you apprised of its progress.
Some years ago, now over ten years in fact, I survived and escaped a really terrible ordeal. Out of that ordeal I wrote a cycle of 15 poems (how often great art comes [...]