Reflections & Illuminations
thoughts on culture, politics, and life itself
What Is This?
Reflections & Illuminations is a new virtual home for some of the writings and thoughts on culture, politics, and life itself by author and cultural critic Seth Rogovoy.
Reflections & Illuminations is a kind of open journal I’m keeping online, where I will discuss and explore a wide variety of topics, including the books I’m reading, the movies I’m watching, and the thoughts I’m thinking.
It’s where I will share random thoughts of a line or two or full-length essays and reviews, or something in between.
It’s where readers will find my original work that isn’t published elsewhere online or in print, although I will certainly post links to stories of mine published elsewhere — in The Forward or in Chronogram, to name just two publications to which I frequently contribute.
It’s where I may publish a rant after something I read in the news, or something I encounter in the public realm (or the private realm, for that matter), sets me off.
It’s where I may share an insight, or a memory, or a funny story, or something my dog did.
Reflections & Illuminations is where I hope you will meet me halfway and offer your thoughtful replies and responses to what I’ve written, in the hopes that we can explore more through discussion.
For starters, the Reflections & Illuminations newsletter will be published 1-2 times a week.
A basic subscription to Reflections & Illuminations is free. At some point in the near future I will be introducing a paid version that will include all the free content plus additional features available only to paid subscribers.
But for now, Subscribe to get access to the Reflections & Illuminations newsletter and website. Never miss an update.
Is this yet another outlet for your music reviews or your writing about Bob Dylan?
No.
Well, yes, I’m sure I will occasionally mention or discuss Bob Dylan (if you don’t already know, I wrote a book about the Nobel Prize-winning rock poet called BOB DYLAN: Prophet Mystic Poet, which is still available wherever books are sold — or ordered).
And I will always be writing about music, new and old.
But I am just as likely to reference Haruki Murakami or Patti Smith as I am Bob Dylan. Or Martin Amis and Zadie Smith, Paul Auster and Franz Kafka, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Edvard Munch, Richard Ford and Janis Joplin, the Beatles and the Clash, Scorsese and Bergman, Rashi and Heschel, Georges Perec and Walter Benjamin, and on and on….
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.
But I already subscribe to The Rogovoy Report. How is this different?
The Rogovoy Report weekly e-blast is primarily a curated aggregation of news, feature, and opinion stories from across the Internet that I did not write (although I typically link to my own columns when they are published elsewhere on the web). It’s the stuff by others I read that I think you’ll want to read, too. (You should subscribe!)
Reflections & Illuminations is a newsletter devoted in its entirety to my own writing, tailored to and for the Substack platform. (If you don’t know what that means you’re just as well off, and you really have no need to know.)
Sure, I will occasionally or even frequently comment on the news and link to stuff that got me thinking or that I think you’ll want to read. But that won’t be the emphasis of this newsletter.
Subscribe to get full access to the newsletter and website. Never miss an update.
To find out more about the company that provides the tech for this newsletter, visit Substack.com.