Shelf Life Shelf Life
Andrew Tabler’s In the Lion's Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington's Battle With Syria; Steven Cook’s The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square.
Dec 21, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Frederick Deknatel
You Can’t Always Get What You Want: On Stephen King You Can’t Always Get What You Want: On Stephen King
In 11/22/63, Stephen King conveys the horrors of American exceptionalism.
Dec 21, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Charles Taylor
L’Élan Vital L’Élan Vital
It happened when a doctorate honoris causa was awarded to a certain Lamerdière of Freiburg— Switzerland or Breisgau, who cares? Garbed in rainbow gown, he mounted the dais and barfed his Objurgation. I revile the larva, he said, the grub from which, in due course, issues the angelic butterfly only to die in the flaring of a match. I despise the silent, the tenuous, the fading. The only god is Rhombus, not the mullet, but the everlasting anti- teleological, universal thunderclap. Not that susurrus which sophists call l’élan vital. If god is word, and word is sound, this almighty bombination, for which no beginning is, no end will ever be, is unique in being both itself and everything else. Jove dies, your Excellencies, the poet’s hymn does NOT last. At this point a Jumbo jet blasted my ears and I woke. Reprinted from The Collected Poems of Eugenio Montale, 1925–1977, translated by William Arrowsmith and edited by Rosanna Warren. Copyright © 2012 by Beth Arrowsmith, Nancy Arrowsmith and Rosanna Warren.
Dec 21, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Eugenio Montale
An Opening in Burma? On Thant Myint-U An Opening in Burma? On Thant Myint-U
Hopes for reform in Burma are starting to be fulfilled, but skepticism of its rulers is still warranted.
Dec 14, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Kurlantzick
Their Power Their Power
An Epigram [1851] Immense armies, generals bold, Police—covert, overt, of both sexes— ‘gainst whom are these aggressors?— A few ideas… that aren’t new but old…! (Translated from the Polish by Danuta Borchardt)
Dec 14, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Cyprian Norwid
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Anne Rophie’s Art and Madness, Millicent Monk’s Songs of Three Islands, Maisie Houghton’s Pitch Uncertain.
Dec 14, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Elias Altman
Signs of Protest: Occupy’s Guerilla Semiotics Signs of Protest: Occupy’s Guerilla Semiotics
Does the content of a demonstration always exceed and fall short of its ostensible message?
Dec 14, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Of Saints and Caudillos: On Enrique Krauze Of Saints and Caudillos: On Enrique Krauze
A Mexican intellectual takes the measure of liberalism and revolution in twentieth-century Latin America.
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jorge Volpi
Scenes from ‘My Life as Sherlock Holmes’ Scenes from ‘My Life as Sherlock Holmes’
1. Feeling around for ideas in the dungeonette 2. Scattershot remnants of tulle and fur 3. To quell an especially decorative urge 4. The taxidermy machine in the hall 5. I enjoy life for a day or two 6. A set of alpaca calipers and an alpaca, in a plaza 7. To have banished disreputable grammar 8. Purloining a moment from the restless ocean 9. Vignette of a cat on a lap, ruminative 10. Before it all kicks off 11. Overheard: squawks from the surveillance pavilion 12. Adjective meaning “pursuivant to fishiness” 13. I take the case with a gothic reluctance 14. To the cave of the giant sloths 15. A salmon, a sirloin, a sticky situation 16. Getting pelted with elaborate hairballs in the kisser 17. Truth or carrier bags 18. I vanquish the wrong evil mastermind 19. The return of the alpaca 20. On the run 21. What dissemblers take for granted, sometimes 22. To tweak a surreptitious plan 23. One camelid down, one to go 24. Last ham standing 25. I relinquish my new friends with regret, and doughnuts 26. Sloping off to the hair palace 27. Having ravished a library for unseemly cheeses 28. Girdles within girdles, or faux circumference 29. A cob peering eerily through a sinister window 30. Dissection island
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jane Yeh
Eels Über Alles: On Julio Cortázar Eels Über Alles: On Julio Cortázar
A novelist’s lyrical attempt to measure the immeasurable.
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Ben Ehrenreich