The Osprey The Osprey
or sea-eagle, what the guidebook says is white, grayish brown, and “possessed of weak eye- masks” in its non-migratory island instance, is blue. Blue, riding thermal bands so low over the water it picks up the water’s color, reticulate tarsi tipping the light crests; and picks up one of the silver fish cutting the surface there, so the fish is blue, too, flapping-gone- slack in the grasp of its claws—as only the owl shares an outer reversible toe-talon, turned out for such clutching; as the water, in turn, picks up the sky- depth reflective blue sent down from ages beyond, into which the osprey lifts now without a least turning of wing-chord though “they are able to bend the joint in their wing to shield their eyes from the light”; what I mean is, by the time I tell you this it’s gone: fish-and-bird, this “bone-breaker,” brown or gray “diurnal raptor,” back into the higher trades. Someday, too, this blue—
Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / David Baker
Transmission Transmission
So he who strongly feels, behaves. —Marianne Moore You find in an alley the mouthpiece of a flute. Gossip alone makes music and suddenly from the pines the birds all fly away. You are devoted to giving clear meaning to one movement. The water in the fountain. Down the fountain. Over it. The prayer chapel but its brick bench. Magnolias in almost bloom. The failure to believe in mathematics is a failure of emotion— you have spent all of your free time. Choral directors describe the torso in terms of the muscles of sound. Your wife paints your two-year-old’s fingernails and the two-year-old says, toes too! Sitting next to an anthill feels like this. They work so hard. And for so little. For salvation. This is the mystery. This is forgiveness.
Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Gary L. McDowell
Imitations of Life Imitations of Life
Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing as a creature of secrets in The Imitation Game.
Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Remembering Mike Nichols Remembering Mike Nichols
Hamilton Fish remembers legendary film director and creative force behind 'The Graduate', Mike Nichols.
Nov 20, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Hamilton Fish
Post-Midterm Political Coverage of GOP Extremism Fits the Definition of Media Absurdity Post-Midterm Political Coverage of GOP Extremism Fits the Definition of Media Absurdity
Eric on this week in concerts and new music releases and Reed on how the mainstream press is always trying to tell the same (false) story about the Republican Party.
Nov 17, 2014 / Blog / Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson
More ‘Wild Tales’: An Interview With Graham Nash More ‘Wild Tales’: An Interview With Graham Nash
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer explains why climate change is the overriding issue of our time, talks at length about his relationship with Joni Mitchell and discusses life with D...
Nov 14, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
Grim Reapers Grim Reapers
Drones have taken on a life of their own in popular culture.
Nov 11, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Jenna Krajeski
From the Dirty Silences From the Dirty Silences
Must art confront ugly realities with an ugliness of its own?
Nov 11, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Noon ictus cooling the veranda’s fretwork the child sits after his harp boning burlesque in the bower, his slit of gulls nerves silenced into hydrangea. Violet and roan, the bridal sun is opening and closing a window, filling a clay pot of coins with coins; candle jars, a crystal globe, cut milk boxes with horn petals snapping their iceberg-Golgotha crackle. The loneliness is terrible, the ice is near, says the hasp-lipped devil, casting beatitudes at the castor-oiled pimps in Parliament, Pray for them, joyfully, their amazing death! Light seethes bulging like pipes blown with napalm from his big golden eyes turning the afternoon ten degrees backwards, then through palm fronds’ teething the bridled air, sprigs of goat hair fall.
Nov 11, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Ishion Hutchinson
No Fate but Entropy No Fate but Entropy
Swagger and survival in Foxcatcher and Red Army
Nov 11, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans