Rough Patch Rough Patch
You can tell, by symptoms of neglect, something of his circumstance: the chipped and buckled eaves, deflated jack-o-lantern beside the stoop, an ember under snow, or red ants swarming the sill, crossing a line of cinnamon in some far-flung military action. You can tell, by frying onions, their thick domestic weather, or the grim satisfaction with which his vacuum overlooks a plain of fur and dust. I can tell from a little just what a whole lot means. You treat me like somebody you ain't never seen. Hackle stacker, mayfly cripple, and Bloom's parachute ant crowd an ashtray—to rarify the quality of failure. Mornings, a frowzy Manx kneads his chest with claws unsheathed, thrumming with desire and contempt in equal measure. Every other weekend, he rolls out a court-appointed cot from the closet for his daughter. You can feel, with your fingertips against his metal door, vibrations from the interstate or seismic evidence of Furry Lewis, circa 1928.
Feb 3, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Devin Johnston
Viewing Conditions: On Jonathan Rosenbaum Viewing Conditions: On Jonathan Rosenbaum
For Jonathan Rosenbaum, the golden age of filmgoing is as dead as the drive-in, but cinephilia is thriving.
Feb 3, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Akiva Gottlieb
Things as They Are Things as They Are
Lee Chang-dong's Poetry, Jorge Michel Grau's We Are What We Are, Ron Howard's The Dilemma
Feb 3, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Dan Bell, RIP Dan Bell, RIP
On the late Daniel Bell, the very archetype of a committed liberal intellectual, and The New Republic's Marty Peretz, plus reader mail.
Jan 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
The Return of the Culture Wars The Return of the Culture Wars
As before, hypocrites are lining their coffers by pandering to ignorance and xenophobia.
Jan 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Doug Harvey
The Weasel’s Tooth: On W.B. Yeats The Weasel’s Tooth: On W.B. Yeats
W.B. Yeats’s poems on Ireland contemplate failures: not of poetry but of public life in all its forms.
Jan 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Burt
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Merrill Gilfillan’s The Bark of the Dog and The Warbler Road; Tony Judt’s The Memory Chalet.
Jan 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
The Ballad of John and J.D.: On John Lennon and J.D. Salinger The Ballad of John and J.D.: On John Lennon and J.D. Salinger
Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye when he shot John Lennon. The murder was a collision of cultures.
Jan 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Charles Taylor
Languaging Languaging
Can a second language provide us with a new self?
Jan 21, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
Slacker Friday Slacker Friday
Eric Alterman rounds up the best of New York, confronts Reagan's Alzheimer's and reader mail.
Jan 21, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman