Morning on the Island Morning on the Island
The lights across the water are the waking city. The water shimmers with imaginary fish. Not far from here lie the bones of conifers washed from the sea and piled by wind. Some mornings I walk upon them, bone to bone, as far as the lighthouse. A strange beetle has eaten most of the trees. It may have come here on the ships playing music in the harbor, or it was always here, a winged jewel, but in the past was kept still by the cold of a winter that no longer comes. There is an owl living in the firs behind us but he is white, meant to be mistaken for snow burdening a bough. They say he is the only owl remaining. I hear him at night listening for the last of the mice and asking who of no other owl.
Apr 5, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Carolyn Forché
A = A A = A
Mine to ask a mask to say, A is not A. No one, ever the contrarian, to answer. The moon is both divided & multiplied by water: as chance, as the plural of chant. O diver, to be sea-surrounded by a thought bled white-- a blankness as likely as blackness. What is the word for getting words & forgetting? Might night right sight? I, too late to relate I & I, trap light in sound & sing no thing that breath can bring.
Apr 5, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Andrew Joron
Reading on the Brain Reading on the Brain
In the history of reading, does progress hinge on the weird, obsolete or eccentric among us?
Apr 5, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
A Conscious Pariah A Conscious Pariah
Raul Hilberg, the first historian to document the banality of Nazi evil, nursed a lifelong grudge against the woman who borrowed from and popularized his work, Hannah Arendt.
Mar 31, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Nathaniel Popper
One From the Heart One From the Heart
The superficial sincerity of Noah Baumbach's Greenberg is not to be trusted.
Mar 31, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Lolita Lolita
Once he has swallowed the disappointment of discovering that Lolita in the movie is pushing hard on the age of consent, the libidinous critic must decide what if anything he can ...
Mar 30, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Robert Hatch
The Catch The Catch
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a ratio...
Mar 30, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Nelson Algren
Superfluity and Bounty Superfluity and Bounty
The Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is a reserve set aside for thinking about the categorical inferiority of destruction to creation.
Mar 23, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
Living for the City Living for the City
There's more to the legend of Jane Jacobs than her showdown with Robert Moses.
Mar 18, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Samuel Zipp
Privacy Degree Zero Privacy Degree Zero
For all its defenders, privacy remains hard to understand.
Mar 18, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Paul Duguid