Flow Dynamics Flow Dynamics
So lightly and invisibly I hardly knew it, river of blood descending without joy back to the heart through the frail vein all that time —the largest of the body— shredded then dissolved (“obliterated”) and there was a sudden seepage into the surrounding tissue instead of the blood pouring out as you’d expect forever before a new vein formed to bypass what was gone like a wide meander even the smallest flood ends, and the river goes straight from that point. But in my case the thin-walled base-ends held forming an anabranch, a section that diverts from the main channel, rejoins it downstream. Local ones can come from, make small islands in the watercourse or flow hundreds of miles like the Bahr el Zeref in the south Sudan that splits from the Bahr al Jabal of the White Nile, doesn’t return until Malakal instead of leaving behind, as it could have with the blood being old, a full-fledged oxbow lake, a little blue scar beside the heart.
Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Elizabeth Arnold
Freedom Deferred: On Stephen Kantrowitz Freedom Deferred: On Stephen Kantrowitz
How social equality was used to discredit the egalitarian project of Reconstruction.
Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Eric Foner
The Good European: On Jürgen Habermas The Good European: On Jürgen Habermas
German “ordoliberalism” and Eurocrats have the EU on the brink, but Germany’s most famous philosopher remains optimistic about European democracy.
Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Anson Rabinbach
Of Time and Intensity Of Time and Intensity
Is Time a dispersion of intensity? For epiphanists, maybe, but not for me— for whom Time is a transposition of immensity into a lower key.
Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Peter Cole
Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney: Together at Last Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney: Together at Last
There’s a new Disney exhibit at the Reagan library. But what are drawings of Bambi and Cinderella doing in the National Archives?
Jul 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener
Tweet Beat: The Top Ten Best Republican Songs Tweet Beat: The Top Ten Best Republican Songs
Twitter brings you the the best Republican songs you've never heard of.
Jul 9, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Katie Halper
Independence for Indy Publisher Chelsea Green Independence for Indy Publisher Chelsea Green
Chelsea Green employees celebrated July 4th this year, not only independent but as brand-new employee-owners of their company.
Jul 4, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Laura Flanders
Extreme Eccentrics: Modern Art and its Collectors Extreme Eccentrics: Modern Art and its Collectors
When collecting works of avant-garde art, Albert Barnes and Leo and Gertrude Stein seemed even madder than its makers.
Jun 25, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Landlocked: On American Property Landlocked: On American Property
In the secret history of property law, property rests on the authority of the state.
Jun 25, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Hendrik Hartog
Tutelary Tutelary
Solace from anemones, sepals of instinct pushing the air. Why do they matter so much, there in the room at noon while nothing moves around them: scarlet, creams, and burgundies, magenta, bone-white, and bruise-like blues; the wind’s daughter, or bride, for some, for others a temple to the wounds of Tammuz— or living itself, wordless, longing. Where is that luminous lusciousness from?
Jun 25, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Peter Cole