Everything Except Me: On Percival Everett Everything Except Me: On Percival Everett
In Assumption a murder mystery becomes a lesson in how much we do not know.
Jan 18, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Laila Lalami
The Devil, Probably: On Maurizio Cattelan The Devil, Probably: On Maurizio Cattelan
An artist known as a trickster and showman stages a disappearing act at the Guggenheim.
Jan 11, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Crime and Punishment: On William Stuntz Crime and Punishment: On William Stuntz
A lack of local democracy and equal protection has led to the collapse of the American criminal justice system.
Jan 11, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Michael O’Donnell
Algeria’s Wounds Algeria’s Wounds
Most people caught up in the Algerian War left no accounts of it at all.
Jan 11, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Richard Vinen
The Language The Language
field of black sheep who know Church Latin a shipyard of vessels all named Sentence a tangle of words in a basket of laundry a night like no other blackbirds falling like endings a gift unrecognized by grace a barrel only a barrel at the Stoics’ Hotel they stay for years getting lost in the language
Jan 11, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Maxine Chernoff
‘The Iron Lady’: The Margaret Thatcher Movie We Don’t Need ‘The Iron Lady’: The Margaret Thatcher Movie We Don’t Need
In the new bio-pic, Margaret Thatcher's iron isn’t just rusty, it’s melted down into something soft and personal. The Iron Lady gives us Thatcher, the ABBA Version...
Jan 4, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Laura Flanders
Anxious and Paralyzed: On Spahr, Gordon, Moschovakis and Ossip Anxious and Paralyzed: On Spahr, Gordon, Moschovakis and Ossip
Books by four poets about big modern systems whose results and failures seem inescapable.
Jan 4, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Burt
Black Candle Black Candle
Your girlish shoulders are for blushing, For blushing under whips, and in dawn’s raw ice to shine. Your child-like hands are for pushing, For pushing flatirons and feed sacks, and knotting twine. Your feet, infant-tender, are for tiptoeing, Tiptoeing through shattered glass, in the blood-tracked clay. And I, I am for you, a black candle burning, Like a black candle I am burning, and dare not pray. (translated from the Russian by Christian Wiman)
Jan 4, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Osip Mandelstam
Last Year’s Model: On Simon Reynolds Last Year’s Model: On Simon Reynolds
A critic of pop’s retro turn can’t shake his own strain of pop nostalgia.
Jan 4, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Sara Marcus
Extremely Extremely
Stephen Daldry’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Wim Wenders’s Pina.
Jan 4, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans