A Witness to Total War A Witness to Total War
When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, the only neutral filmmaker in the country was Julien Bryan. His round-the-clock footage of Warsaw's destruction, assembled in Siege, is now aga...
Oct 21, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Eagan
Changing the Metaphor Changing the Metaphor
For Jackson Lears, the United States remains in thrall to a bogus spiritual quest born of a refusal to face the tragedy of the Civil War.
Oct 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Richard White
Honey and Salt Honey and Salt
Technology has made us capable of exterminating ourselves. In The Year of the Flood, Margaret Atwood wonders what might save us.
Oct 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
A Gift From the Ramparts of Capital… A Gift From the Ramparts of Capital…
People shouldn't take Peace Prizes too seriously except under those rare circumstances when a prize committee somewhere gets it right.
Oct 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Cockburn
Aubade Aubade
Cell tower beacon a red boutonniere-- Sanankoroba on the hook w/ Senanque-- & flourishing thru this gunite, perishing world: a freesia fitted w/ aerofoils that turn in the wind & turn the wind to kilowatt-hours to power the flower forth--
Oct 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Andrew Zawacki
The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue (Excerpt) The Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue (Excerpt)
If I sat next to you, spoke only to you, you would feel the warmth of my breath. As our shoulders touched you would shift, and I would know your movement as response. This is a world and we are in it. And still, as if this matters, I worry that you can't see me; I worry that you will go on without me in mind--even as our shoulders continue to touch, even as you carry my voice in your ear. At times I've wished for a structure to lean on, a landmark that's larger than the life around us, something that would govern us all. Maybe I want this because we almost had it. In truth, I was almost our Capital City. Did you know the longest total solar eclipse that will occur in the 21st century was experienced most fully this summer in Shanghai, in a city. China's most populated city. For six minutes and thirty-nine seconds, as the moon passed directly between the earth and the sun, for all those bodies all was darkness. I know how that feels. But daylight is the great extravagance. In the end I know this is true--even if I fall again and again into my private realities--because despite everything I am built out of lives.
Oct 14, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Claudia Rankine
Baffled Dignity Baffled Dignity
Alain Resnais's Wild Grass and Margot Benacerraf's Araya.
Oct 8, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
End-of-Self Help End-of-Self Help
Is the task of philosophy "to learn how to die," or to teach that there is no such thing as a good death?
Oct 8, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Provan
Waiting for the Miracle: On Leonard Cohen Waiting for the Miracle: On Leonard Cohen
In Leonard Cohen's Afterworld, the trajectory between the latest hit and the wisdom of old has been a long one.
Oct 7, 2009 / Books & the Arts / David Yaffe
Thin Shangdu Thin Shangdu
The millipede of furious minds who concocts all steel sternumed glass, imagines the heart of what they make, all ruse & rooms of ruby ventricled chandeliers. Along the rear of this vertical frontier: tents & oil spilt ponds, a jungle of bloomers hangs on tiers of stocking string. An opera singer, once in tiger's masque, keens which echoes deep in the well of his welder's mask. A young boy dreams of mums.
Oct 7, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Cathy Park Hong