History Unforeseen: On Sylvia Townsend Warner History Unforeseen: On Sylvia Townsend Warner
In the fiction of Sylvia Townsend Warner, historical change is accidental and almost imperceptible, but for all that no less decisive.
Jan 7, 2010 / Books & the Arts / David Carroll Simon
Nocturnal Crossing Nocturnal Crossing
Audacity it is you who will console us least right here the animal alloy of muscle and voice in the rainy detonation of the day under the plus sign overflown by a squadron of petrels Thanks to the farmers who regale me with hatred painted on their faces days perch solely on the shoulders of women more than asleep Storm or rain the beaks that put me back between the hands of the scream will guide them laudably Covered with fresh encephalon I rise already even faster silence like the bull under the maul it is a kiss deriving lips from our clogprints (Translated from the French by A. James Arnold and Clayton Eshleman)
Jan 6, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Aimé Césaire
How Soon Was Now? How Soon Was Now?
The death, and afterlife, of the Polaroid.
Dec 23, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
End of the Century End of the Century
Can pop music survive without a mass market, mass acceptance or the drive for mass profits?
Dec 23, 2009 / Books & the Arts / J. Gabriel Boylan
Back Talk: Frederick Wiseman Back Talk: Frederick Wiseman
A conversation with the director of La Danse about the discipline of ballet--and documentary filmmaking.
Dec 23, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Christine Smallwood
Misterioso Misterioso
Thelonious Monk was a more nuanced figure than the flimsy characterization of a way-out jazz cat could ever convey.
Dec 23, 2009 / Books & the Arts / David Yaffe
Focus on Israel Focus on Israel
A spate of new films address the human toll the Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes on both sides.
Dec 22, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
Untitled Untitled
We all die alone however we can, as for me I'll coil in a volcano's swooning crater or dilute myself in the path's refrains And if my heart stays till trail's end I don't see why my blood can't join the flood beneath this ark, snatching from the deluge of my human pasts, from the face each agony showed me, the cross or port's beacon we sailed from (we sought a belly in common to save us from the mass grave!) Make it so blood swamps me --better blood than brushfire! Everywhere the doe flash fire already in their eyes; these deer, they have the knack of dying lewd. (Translated from the French by Peter Thompson)
Dec 22, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Tchicaya u Tam’si
The Resistance of Painting: On Abstraction The Resistance of Painting: On Abstraction
To speak of a movement of abstractionists would be a contradiction in terms, like speaking of a church of atheists.
Dec 16, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Human Traffic Human Traffic
Sister Ping turned a variety store in New York's Chinatown into a lucrative business by making it a headquarters for human smuggling.
Dec 16, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Ted Conover