The Orchid Flower The Orchid Flower
Just as I wonder whether it's going to die, the orchid blossoms and I can't explain why it moves my heart, why such pleasure comes from one small bud on a long spindly stem, one blood red gold flower opening at mid-summer, tiny, perfect in its hour. Even to white- haired craggy poet, it's purely erotic, pistil and stamen, pollen, dew of the world, a spoonful of earth, and water. Erotic because there's death at the heart of birth, drama in those old sunrise prisms in wet cedar boughs, deepest mystery in washing evening dishes or teasing my wife, who grows, yes, more beautiful because one of us will die.
Nov 1, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Sam Hamill
Sweatshops, Firsthand Sweatshops, Firsthand
A review of Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the Global Factory, by Miriam Ching Yoon Louie.
Nov 1, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Elizabeth Martinez
Which America Will We Be Now? Which America Will We Be Now?
September 11 showed us true American heroes. Now let's build on their strength.
Nov 1, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Bill Moyers
Northern Lights Northern Lights
Reviews of Hedda Gabler and Dance of Death.
Nov 1, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Carol Rocamora
London After Bloomsbury London After Bloomsbury
A review of On the Wing: A Young American Abroad, by Nora Sayre.
Nov 1, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Hazel Rowley
Expressway to Yr Skull Expressway to Yr Skull
Indie rock, once the soundtrack of the 1980s and early '90s, is largely gone, but it had a rich history.
Nov 1, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Star
Twin Peaks Twin Peaks
Lifestyle sections have lately been detailing the public's renewed appetite for comfort food. If that rice-pudding desire translates to the big screen, then cinematic fairy tales t...
Oct 25, 2001 / Books & the Arts / B. Ruby Rich
A Legal Recounting A Legal Recounting
Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is an intellectual force to be reckoned with. The author, seemingly, of more books written whil...
Oct 25, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Leonard H. Becker
Art & the Towering Sadness Art & the Towering Sadness
Not long after the attack on the World Trade Center, when my wife and I sat dazed and weeping by the television screen, a call came through from a journalist wanting to know what ...
Oct 25, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Arthur C. Danto
A Simple Twist of Fate A Simple Twist of Fate
Serendipity is rotten cotton candy. No, more like actual cotton dipped in rich, drippy chocolate--the confection hawked by Catch-22's greedhead Milo Minderbinder. About a quarter ...
Oct 18, 2001 / Books & the Arts / Tim Appelo