The County Seat of Presidio County The County Seat of Presidio County
One thinks of boats this far from water then goes back to just so crushing into sculpture the rear and forward quarter panels of three cars pasteled for half a century by the Big Bend sun, by the windy grit, tarantula spit, and even piercing starlight for that singular space in the mind of art: an abandoned barracks in afternoon’s half-shadow. Even in winter, it’s a long way for the glare to chariot his old welder across the sky. Boyd Elder sweeps the wasps from Prada Marfa a good twenty miles from Marfa proper. Someone else hates that someone by accident swept the Russian schoolhouse everyone loves to hate. A colossal horseshoe crucified with a ridiculous man-sized nail against the sky casts the shadow of a sickle and hammer. Yuccas lean for decades, and the rust on all maybe-likes the sun. After a downpour flees east to Alpine, it’s best to shake your head at the green that nearly tries. It didn’t rain last year, and it won’t rain this year, says the mayor to the hung-over travelers who could be artists, and one of them writes this in a notebook to an angel he saw late last night down the long Judd-red counter of the convenience store, her entire right shoulder’s agave-blue agave tattoo lit by the cash register candy bar light. She bought cigarettes as they locked the doors. Who could know she would come all this way with her soft bangs, her confident nostrils, and that utterly touchable old white sweater? He hopes deeply she might run him over with the land yacht of her prevailing aesthetic.
Apr 12, 2014 / Books & the Arts / John Poch
Out of the Fields, Onto the Screen: What ‘Cesar Chavez’ Gets Wrong About the Labor Movement Out of the Fields, Onto the Screen: What ‘Cesar Chavez’ Gets Wrong About the Labor Movement
The new film turns decades of organized struggle into the inspiring tale of one man.
Apr 9, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Tim Barker
Missing the Story Missing the Story
How turning the Murder of Kitty Genovese into a parable erased its particulars.
Apr 8, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Peter C. Baker
The Body Politic The Body Politic
When US soldiers venture abroad, women’s bodies can become the occupied territories.
Apr 8, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Akemi Johnson
Worn Muses Worn Muses
Nymphomaniac is Lars von Trier’s latest ode to titillation and traps.
Apr 8, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Shelf Life Shelf Life
How the literary critic Paul de Man turned evasiveness into authority.
Apr 8, 2014 / Books & the Arts / David Mikics
Gore Vidal: At 10, I Wanted to be Mickey Rooney Gore Vidal: At 10, I Wanted to be Mickey Rooney
How Mickey Rooney’s Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream changed Vidal’s life.
Apr 7, 2014 / Blog / Jon Wiener
Past, Present, Futurism Past, Present, Futurism
The Guggenheim’s Futurism exhibition and the Whitney Biennial offer competing visions of present-mindedness.
Apr 2, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
What’s Behind the ‘Poor Door’? What’s Behind the ‘Poor Door’?
Inclusionary zoning laws are among the few tools left to ensure the creation of affordable housing.
Apr 2, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Michael Sorkin
Not the Cesar Chavez I Knew Not the Cesar Chavez I Knew
A new film about the labor leader reduces him to a caricature and ignores his true strengths as an organizer.
Apr 1, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Marshall Ganz