Lloyd Bowers was born in Columbus, Georgia in 1952, graduated from Furman University in 1976, and has lived in Charleston, South Carolina since 2002.
The Results of Polar Bear Research is Lloyd's first novel and was published in 2007. Lloyd's next book, Keep These in the Family, is a collection of twelve stories and was published in 2010.
"I grew up in the South," says Lloyd. "The Southern Appalachians is a sort of fixed foot in my life, and the summer-time is a great time to gravitate unpredictably in social settings."
"Freedom is a Public Utility, published 2014, developed from the discovery of a stash of old family letters, dated 1812 to 1857, mailed to my great-great-grandfather John Siegling, who emigrated from Erfurt, Germany, and settled in Charleston in 1820. That he was en route, or 'unterwegs,' for five years impressed me.
"Divide the Country! was published February, 2020. It reflects my concern about the disunity, and even partisan hatred, that plagues the U.S."
Seeing a building in ruins gives me the blues. From 1989 until 1991, I lived off and on in England and saw many ruins. When I started writing full-time in 2002, I wrote a short story about it, titled "The Truth About Ruins". The narrator remembers his honeymoon, when he toured England with his new bride and visited several ancient ruins. The scant information on their original appearance frustrated him. He can't see the purpose of leaving them in a ruinous state.
There has been a spate of mass shootings lately, mostly involving Black juveniles and young adults in party settings. After a few hours of revelry and boozing, one boy turns on another, and they start fighting. Other boys take sides and join the fray, until someone pulls out a gun and sprays the area around him—usually the loser in the fray using a gun to settle scores. Well-off adults digest these events with dispirited calm. Harnessed to their routines of marriage, a regular job, and social networks, they forget the impulsiveness, temperamental angst, and romantic rivalries of youth. Harmless sassing can lead so easily to a fist-fight, and from there to the violence of a mob mentality, where nobody is safe.
At sundown on December 14th, the Jewish holiday Hanukkah will begin and last for eight nights. For all its festiveness, it is a solemn holiday in Judaism that celebrates the Maccabean Revolt, and the reconsecration of the Temple at Jerusalem. Orthodox and Catholic Bibles recount the Revolt in the Book of Maccabees.
I live in Charleston, South Carolina. In 2012, most of the Episcopal Churches in Charleston chose to leave the Episcopal Church and join The Anglican Church of North America. You could easily spend a few days in a library going through the range of opinions on this subject, tracing each step in the process of the Episcopal Church's near-dissolution.
This article appeared in the Sunday edition of Die Welt on November 28. It shows Woody Allen on a couch with a psychiatrist complaining about his girlfriend, played by Diane Keaton. This scene is actually filmed split-screen, with Keaton complaining to her psychiatrist about Allen. In Germany, Annie Hall was released under the title Der Stadtneurotiker, or "The Urban Neurotic." The way the film plays out, the neurotic could be either of them, if not both.
I graduated from college in 1976, and if my reader graduated a few years on either side of 1976, I would like to ask them a basic question: WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN YOUR LIFETIME?
This article appeared in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper during my visit to Germany last July. Just think of it. In some countries, people would rather sit in an outdoor cinema and just watch the ambient scenery, than sit through another damn movie. This particular outdoor cinema, perched on a mountainside, stands in the Tirolese Alps of northern Italy, near a tiny hamlet Vöran bei Lana, close to the Austrian border. Seriously, journalists and media-watchers have worried over the decline of movie-attendance since the onset of the Covid-epidemic in 2020 and the subsequent lockdown. The title of this article "Das war schon der Todeskuss" translates into English, "That Was the Kiss of Death," meaning the effect of the Corona pandemic on the German film industry. With the re-opening of cinemas, attendance has increased, but has a ways to go before it reaches the 2019 niveau.
This article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper appeared Thursday, November 15th in 2014.
During my college years in the early-1970s, few figures in national politics stirred more controversy than Dr. Henry Kissinger. His presence in the Nixon and Ford administration carried more influence than any other official. His high-handedness made him plenty of enemies, but he accomplished so much during his tenure at the State Department and the National Security Agency.
As an American citizen, I prefer a government that permits and enables a freedom-loving, constitutionally-based society. I prefer it for one reason only--because it works better than anything else. It releases the energy, enthusiasm, and effort of thousands of people to build businesses and commercial networks to create wealth. A freedom-loving society releases man's potential.
I am in Erfurt, Germany, again, my home-away-from-home. My Great-great-grandfather grew up here before going abroad about 1810, and finally settling in Charleston, South Carolina in about 1818. My mother found a bunch of his old family letters in an office-secretary, written by his father and his siblings still in Germany between 1812 and 1857. Among other things, I am impressed by Erfurt's long and complex history. During my very first visit in 1998, for instance, I read that a construction crew was clearing a site to prepare it for new buildings, and discovered a hoard of ancient artifacts hiding in the rubble.
Over the last twenty or so years, the level of resentment in American society has risen to a dangerous, or at least dysfunctional level, leading to destabilization in the balance of world power. When I read about the Russian invasion of Ukraine or Chinese aggression toward Taiwan, I see it as the fruit of American disunity.
