Letter From a Prisoner Letter From a Prisoner
You, who only write letters in your dreams Hello mother! your son now engraves in his heart letters to send you he would like to send you a snail loving the ground passionately he would like to print burning kisses everywhere, where your steps take you he would like to send you a snail to read your poems on the sand to gather them in a shell and send them to the sea this sea whose azure you share where she rests Hello mother! Have you received the snail? (translated from the French by Doog T. Wood)
Oct 12, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Abdallah Zrika
Disciplined Filth Disciplined Filth
George Clooney’s The Ides of March, Danfung Dennis’s Hell and Back Again, Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez’s You Don’t Like the Truth: 4 Days In...
Oct 11, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
CEO CEO
Hewlett-Packard CEO, fired after disastrous eleven-month reign, gets $13 million in termination benefits. —news reports One job’s a job I never would forgo. That job, of course, is being CEO. According to the customs now prevailing, It pays a lot—and pays you more for failing. It must be nice to have a job wherein You cannot lose, for if you lose you win.
Oct 5, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
The Wrong Moral Revolution: On Michael Barnett The Wrong Moral Revolution: On Michael Barnett
To see humanitarianism everywhere is not to see it at all.
Oct 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / David Rieff
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Jean-Patrick Manchette’s Fatale, Binyavanga Wainaina’s One Day I Will Write About This Place, Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s The History of Costaguana
Oct 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Getting to Denmark: On Francis Fukuyama Getting to Denmark: On Francis Fukuyama
The Origins of Political Order, a work of total world history, pits the old Fukuyama against the new.
Oct 5, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney
Top Ten Songs About Class Top Ten Songs About Class
Since every great protest movement needs its culture, here's my stab at a list of the ten best songs ever written about class and poverty in tribute to #OccupyWallStreet.
Oct 3, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Peter Rothberg
The Search The Search
The far right looked for someone who’d befit The ticket—that is, someone not named Mitt But someone who could strongly lead the nation Without the faintest whiff of moderation. Chris Christie thought about it, then said nyet, And Bachmann was the quickest flopper yet. It looked like Perry was the right’s white hope, But now they’re saying Perry’s just a dope. So who will they convince now to get in? The time is short. Their bench is looking thin.
Sep 28, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Cruel America Cruel America
Roars of applause for executions at the GOP debate, official approval of torture, barbaric prison conditions, obstruction of aid to storm victims and children in need—is our ...
Sep 28, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Schell
After Deng: On China’s Transformation After Deng: On China’s Transformation
Is Deng Xiaoping’s legacy of modernization without political reform one that no contemporary Chinese official can control?
Sep 27, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Kurlantzick