___________________________      EDINBURGH: CITY OF FESTIVALS MICHAEL BLAHA Excerpt from “The Edinburgh Fringe Festival:” I’m walking east down the Royal Mile towards my favorite Indian restaurant off South Bridge, Mother India, when I am accosted by a very large hairy man in a pink tutu, who thrusts a glossy […]

The Poem Noir: Too Dark to be Depressed   SUZANNE LUMMIS     ________________________________________    The Poem Noir  Too Dark to be Depressed Excerpt from “The Poem Noir: Too Dark to be Depressed” What is it, the poem noir? To understand, one must know what film noir is and, happily (if “happily” […]

Interview with Jeff Jones, Co-Founder of the Weather Underground and Co-Author of Prairie Fire Execution on a Saigon Street, Photo by Eddie Adams (1968) Excerpts from Interview with Jeff Jones: RITKES: Years of protests didn’t change a lot in terms of foreign policy, the war, and racism, so it looks […]

INTERVIEW WITH DR. HARRY EDWARDS Dr. Harry Edwards and Coach Bill Walsh “If a strategic part of our struggle is NOT to convert critics, adversaries, and the apathetic into collaborators, allies, and advocates, then what are we struggling for – to replace their denunciation and repression of us with our […]

JAMES CAGNEY “How to Operate Heavy Machinery”   HOW TO OPERATE HEAVY MACHINERY (circa 1978) Think of yourself as a medical specialist puzzling over the diagnosis for a machine’s stubborn silence, its symptoms of tremors and smoke. Dip the doughnut of your torque converter into a steaming cup of black […]

IMPRESSIONS FROM THE VOTER REGISTRATION BATTLE FRONT LIBERTY, MISSISSIPPI, NOVEMBER, 1965  By Debbie Green   EXCERPTS FROM DEBBIE GREEN’S 1965 JOURNAL: “We were aware that the Village Voice proposed to send us to one of the most dangerous places in the South for Civil Rights workers, a rural area in […]

INTERVIEW WITH MIKE PRYSNER EXCERPTS FROM INTERVIEW WITH MIKE PRYSNER:   “When you take your stance against war, you are part of a heritage that goes back thousands of years. You are standing on the shoulders of thousands who have gone before you and paved the way. The protections we […]

INTERVIEW WITH DON HATA Last in Line (Detail) by Don Hata EXCERPTS FROM THE INTERVIEW WITH DON HATA:  “There were signs and posters all over the neighborhood about Japanese people being ordered to leave, and our mostly white neighbors knew we were leaving. They saw us packing our pickup truck […]

  Volume 1 Fall 2025 CONTRIBUTORS Sandow Birk is a Los Angeles–based artist Sandow Birk creates ambitious, multimedia projects that address contemporary life and pressing social issues through the lens of art history. His work has explored themes from Southern California urban culture to immigration, incarceration, war, and classical literature. […]

NASA Photo (James Webb Telescope)   “The old world is dying, and the newworld struggles to be born:  now isthe time of monsters.” Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks (1935)       Dear Reader,       Welcome to the premier edition of Headwind!       Headwind is a new literary journal featuring […]