Understanding Anger

Patricia Cunliffe Experimental filmmaker and author Kenneth Anger died on May 11, 2023. In this article, AMASS contributor Patricia Cunliffe explores his life, his work, and his unique place in our culture. Then we hear from Anger himself in a revelatory and...

Whose Democracy Was Protected in the 2022 Election?

The Democrats are celebrating their win in the November election as a victory for democracy, a welcoming assertion if they’ve indeed checked the anti-democratic tendencies in the Republican Party and elsewhere. But it was also surely a defaulted one, dependent to a...

The Wake

   “I don’t think I’ve ever…met him,” says the woman mostly to herself, scoping the portable plasterboard-stand near the entrance pasted with clippings and reminiscences, like something there might help her be more decisive.  “Why did you come, then?” I ask. “Oh,...

Alchemy

He kisses the redial on his phone once again and orders another draft from the waitress, feeling like he’s becoming conspicuous sitting at the end of the bar near this open bay window to the sea, but gets no answer. Yesterday she choked his messages with questions and...

Altz House

ALTZ HOUSE John O’Kane “How’d you hear about us, Mr. Bretoff?” asks the sixtyish, silver-haired woman at the table. “I…don’t remember exactly. I think it was…” “Mr. Bretoff…Mr. Bretoff…you okay?” “I…sure…I was just thinking about…something.” His tentative tone frames...

Peytch’s Place

PEYTCH’S PLACE John O’Kane Long Beach is losing one of its great artists to gentrification. Peytch has occupied his studio for 29 years on 14th Street just east of the 710 FWY. He’s worked in several genres since getting his aesthetic inspiration growing up in...

Demonizing the Few to Alienate and Sway the Many

Demonizing the Few to Alienate and Sway the Many John O’Kane The only media fixation that’s more irritating than the saturation coverage of candidates running for an office nearly two years ahead of the election instead of discussing issues, is the punditry of...

Drops and the Dropped

DROPS, AND THE DROPPED: DIVERSITY AND THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS John O’Kane The left professes diversity as its vehicle and goal to expand power and bring more of the deserving into the system but, ironically, it’s one of the reasons why the Democrats fared so poorly in...