Messenger Messenger
The birds stopped coming after the annuals died. I didn't realize how much I missed them until the bluebird Returned, lured by the burgundy haze of the fall pansies Pour...
Feb 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Franklin
‘Monsoon’ Season ‘Monsoon’ Season
Why, asked my friends and my baffled wife. Why, piped my son. Even the movie critics sitting next to me wanted to know: What perversity drove me to see Hart's War and Rollerball?...
Feb 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Artists Strike a Chord Artists Strike a Chord
Johnny Temple plays bass guitar in the rock bands Girls Against Boys and New Wet Kojak and is the publisher of Akashic Books (www.akashicbooks.com).
Feb 27, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Johnny Temple
Seeking ‘Convulsive Beauty’ Seeking ‘Convulsive Beauty’
The legendary Surrealist exhibitions of the late 1930s and early 1940s were Surrealist in spirit and secondarily Surrealist in content. In 1942, for example, an exhibition called...
Feb 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Arthur C. Danto
The Base Camp of Christendom The Base Camp of Christendom
Pat Buchanan surely holds the record for the greatest impact on a presidential election with the fewest votes. With less than 0.43 percent of the tally nationally, he still manag...
Feb 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Philip A. Klinkner
Not Betsy Rosses Not Betsy Rosses
For a while I thought about designing a flag. Something bigger, blurrier than "nation." I imagined a hovering planet on a field of blue, and "United We Stand" could be written un...
Feb 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eileen Myles
Denmark Vesey: A New Verdict Denmark Vesey: A New Verdict
A historian questions whether he led a slave revolt, but his heroism still stands.
Feb 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener
Protesting Black Hawk Down Protesting Black Hawk Down
It's one thing to have Somali groups protesting Black Hawk Down for what they say is an inaccurate and racist portrayal of Somalis.
Feb 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Adrian Brune
Ellison Unbound Ellison Unbound
"I remind myself that much of television is now comic strip," Ralph Ellison told TV Guide in 1988. It is not surprising that the author of Invisible Man would be uncomfortable wi...
Feb 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / David Yaffe
Lost in America Lost in America
"When I write, I bid farewell to myself," Jimmy Santiago Baca said in 1992. "I leave most of what I know behind and wander through the landscape of language." This is a memorable...
Feb 14, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ilan Stavans