Calabar Magazine

by Crystal Dundas I have once heard someone say “ovaries over gender”, at first I didn’t know what to make of it, but now that the primaries and the dirty political tricks is half done I could say that not everyone felt the same way. Not everyone fell for the already broken promises of the Clinton [...]

What: First-Day-of-Issue dedication ceremony of the Distinguished Sailors 44-cent Commemorative First-Class stamps. The event is free and open to the public. When: 10:30 a.m., Thurs., Feb. 4, 2010 Where: The Arleigh and Roberta Burke Theater United States Navy Memorial 701 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, DC  20004-2608 Background: The U.S. Postal Service will immortalize Dori Miller and three other sailors who served with bravery and distinction during the 20th century when it [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, February 2009 The editor asked me to write about being unemployed and my job search.  Well.  It’s hard.  It’s boring.  It’s, as of this writing, ineffective.  It’s not for sissies. Unemployment is something I’ve gone through a few times before, but nothing like this.  People keep talking about a PLAN B as if [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, May 2009 I am exhausted.   Been out of work since end of October and well, being out of work; looking for work is work.  The editor asked for something on the environment, but this time, I got to talk politics, the economy and very ugly buildings. We have a new President who despite [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, June/July 2008 The heat broke this morning after a storm of noisy violence.  Cats were cowering from side of Brooklyn to the other.  But we welcome the coolness and the chance to walk about and breathe without gasping.  In a way, that is how it feels to contemplate changes in the political [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, July 2008 Food is a subject so fraught, I am not sure I want to deal with it.  Of course, Atim who is tall and slender probably can eat anything she wants.  But I am short and round and when I wasn’t looking the pounds begat pounds making food both a comfort [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, January/February 2007 On the last day of 2006, I bought a Cesaria Evora CD because I stopped by Calabar to say Happy New Year to Atim and Heloise.  Before that I’d said my prayers in the Botanic Garden where the Ever Blooming cherry tree in the Japanese Garden was in bloom.  [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, September/October 2007 I love writing for Calabar Magazine.  Her themes take me out of my own comfort zone and this one is on business and finance.  Hey I have a full time job; my passion and work as a poet and cultural critic, this column.  I make okay dollars, i. e. I [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, December 2007 Year’s end, new beginnings?  All I know is that the winter solstice brought the grayest days I’ve ever seen in New York City, a kind of gray that Melville talks about at the beginning of Moby Dick. Sullen. Still.  The kind of gray that says please snow, rain, DO SOMETHING.  [...]

by Patricia Spears Jones, March/April 2007 The annual New Year’s card arrived from Tomie Arai—a most happy Pig.  This is the Pig’s year and already there’s a lot of rooting out of bad influences, bad people, bad ideas even as strange talk pollutes the airwaves.  Dead blondes in the Bahamas, missing billions in Iraq, Dick Cheney [...]