Michael Gonzales

Oct 2, 2024 | memoirland.substack.com | Michael Gonzales

Born and raised “in the city,” as the bridge and tunnel people refer to Manhattan, I began watching films shot there when I was just 4, when Mom took me to Radio City Music Hall in 1967 to see Barefoot in the Park. Looking back now, it occurs to me that perhaps that movie that led to my lifelong obsession with New York City on celluloid.

Jul 20, 2024 | aarongilbreath.substack.com | Michael Gonzales

“If P.M. Dawn came out today they would be Gods,” someone once posted on Twitter, and, as a fan of the group’s avant-garde hip-hop soul sound since the beginning of their careers, I agree. Unlike the closed minds of decades past that had a problem with the cosmic freakiness that Prince Be (Attrell Cordes) and his younger brother DJ Minutemix (Jarrett Cordes) introduced in 1991, new-millennium fans are more open towards experimentation.

May 27, 2024 | oldster.substack.com | Michael Gonzales

Recently while watching Ripley on Netflix, I smiled when I heard the characters were going to stay at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome. Though I’d never stayed at the swank spot where Patricia Highsmith’s characters dwelled, I was once a frequent visitor at a different Excelsior Hotel, this one on the upper west side of Manhattan, where my godfather, Uncle Hans (Wolfgang Schwerin) lived for decades.

Feb 28, 2024 | memoirland.substack.com | Michael Gonzales

In late 2023 The Atlantic magazine contributing writer Eliot Cohen, in an article about plagiarism in relation to now resigned Harvard President Claudine Gay, called the offense the “gravest of academic sins." While not a crime that could have the accused thrown in jail, it can destroy your life and standing within the professional community. From poet Ailey O’ Toole to debut novelist Jumi Bello to crime writer A. J.

Dec 18, 2023 | oldster.substack.com | Michael Gonzales

Back in the late-1980s my Detroit-born friend Chene told me that her adolescent niece was visiting from Detroit when they saw actress Sigourney Weaver on the subway. The teenager got excited and wanted to ask the Alien/Working Girl star for an autograph, but cool auntie discouraged her. “We don’t do that in New York,” Chene explained.