Ten Things the Past Can Teach Us Today Ten Things the Past Can Teach Us Today
"Live as if you are free" and other lessons of the past can help us build a progressive future.
Sep 2, 2010 / Books & the Arts / The Nation
Peregrine Peregrine
The peregrine don't bother with the beak and feet and toss them to the sidewalk off the top of the Methodist's tower like KFC out the window of a speeding car of drunks, sparrow and pigeon parts on the sidewalk, a roadside litter, the road here in this case is the sky. It rains blood more literally than it always does and the birds of prey have non-metallic feathers. Everyone in Chicago has read in the Times, coyotes prefer Mc D's. Our kind of wild life steps right up, robs the joint in the disguise of himself he knows no one would believe. True, animals don't use human technologies, but the changes in us, because of such advances, advance the animal relation to us. They've necessarily learned vicariously what they need to know of how two-legged technologies run; they keep up with us the same way the dumbest button pusher keeps up with the MIT computer engineer. Not rocket science, but enough to know what it does is there to work around or with whatever it is. Adaptation is an education in more fields than we imagine.
Sep 2, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Ed Roberson
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Ruth Harris's Dreyfus; Deborah Amos's Eclipse of the Sunnis.
Sep 2, 2010 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
Reverse Psychology: On Ernst Weiss Reverse Psychology: On Ernst Weiss
In Georg Letham, Ernst Weiss turned to psychoanalysis to tap an atmosphere of unknown terror and mystery.
Sep 1, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Elias Altman
Slacker Friday Slacker Friday
On the media, John McCain, "Hotel California," wives, ex-wives and shows at the Palladium.
Aug 28, 2010 / Blog / Eric Alterman
The Unmaking of a Company Man The Unmaking of a Company Man
An education begun in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate.
Aug 27, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Andrew J. Bacevich
On ‘Friday Night Lights’, Abortion Stigma Goes Primetime On ‘Friday Night Lights’, Abortion Stigma Goes Primetime
Manipulating information women who are seeking abortion receive is a staple of antichoice politics. A recent episode of Friday Night Lights reveals how damaging that strategy is.
Aug 26, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Nancy Northup
No Name or Too Many? On Javier Marías No Name or Too Many? On Javier Marías
In Javier Marías's trilogy Your Face Tomorrow, the self is composed of borrowed languages and an uncertain voice.
Aug 25, 2010 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
The Pithy Serpent The Pithy Serpent
everyone knows satan is just a guy with a lot of special efx a pithy serpent who plucks apples from the garden of lost trees I'm an ancient bystander whose chronology is less sympathetic and more cave-like think of me as an obscene gesture a plain ordinary obscene gesture in a place where the weather is nice and the people don't have a clue
Aug 25, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Dave Brinks
An Art of Time An Art of Time
Rafael Ferrer and Christian Marclay prize an aesthetic of spontaneous responsiveness irrespective of subject.
Aug 25, 2010 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky