Rattles Rattles
When I finally woke up, the nurse handed me my baby. “He’s pretty,” she said, plopping him. His eyes looked slanted. The sun shone in. I squinted. I tried to remember the last thing I remembered. A dance in the OR, people scrambling all around me. A nurse with horns. A doctor with a scalpel, another looking toothless. Their faces, all veiny. My husband, where was he, with a cherry. My baby cried, his voice squeaky. I hurt from where they took him. Shh, I said. Shh. I held him. I was cold. He got quiet, closed his eyes and I asked the nurse where was my husband. She wore scrubs with an array of colored rattles. Yellow glasses. Something smelled like apples. She said, Your baby’s probably hungry. I tried to move my arms, to give him, but a sharp pain shot through me. Ahh! I said. Please, I said to the nurse. Can you? She took him, shushing him, bouncing him out to the hallway.
Apr 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Kim Chinquee
‘You’re So Pretty’: On Laurel Nakadate ‘You’re So Pretty’: On Laurel Nakadate
Most of what we think we see in the photos and films of Laurel Nakadate is our own projection.
Apr 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Elizabeth Taylor: What Becomes a Legend Most Elizabeth Taylor: What Becomes a Legend Most
Remembering the icon, a pro at sex and survival.
Mar 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / JoAnn Wypijewski
When Nothing Happens: On David Bezmozgis When Nothing Happens: On David Bezmozgis
The Free World is a novel about lives suspended at a moment when everything is uncertain. It is about frustration. Unfortunately, it too is frustrating.
Mar 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
Turkey’s Transformation: On Islam, Nationalism and Modernity Turkey’s Transformation: On Islam, Nationalism and Modernity
Carter Vaughn Finley's timely new history contends that Turkey's development has been misunderstood as an upward march from Islamic empire to secular republic.
Mar 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Marc Edward Hoffman
Looking at Maps Looking at Maps
If they’d had writing in time, Cuba could have been Crete, watery source of the Minoans and thus the Greeks. What’s lost? A possible us growing like new foliage out of stony ground, emerging? Last voice, first, a whole world calling— awful, inaudible—into the unstoppable loud (roaring!) hurricane-force sea wind.
Mar 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Elizabeth Arnold
Readjustments: On ‘Win Win,’ ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ and ‘My Perestroika’ Readjustments: On ‘Win Win,’ ‘The Adjustment Bureau’ and ‘My Perestroika’
Is it a good thing that film—not the audiovisual materials that exist everywhere but movies, projected in public spaces— has stopped being central to American life?
Mar 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Donald Trump Demands That Obama Show His Birth Certificate Donald Trump Demands That Obama Show His Birth Certificate
All White House hopefuls we forewarn: You’ll have to prove that you were born. Before Trump hits the state of granite, He’ll have to tell us all the planet Upon which he was born and reared— Where loudmouths reign and hair is weird.
Mar 30, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Naoto Kan and the End of ‘Japan Inc.’ Naoto Kan and the End of ‘Japan Inc.’
Criticism of the government’s response to the catastrophe has obscured major political changes.
Mar 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Tim Shorrock
Puzzle Contest: Solutions Puzzle Contest: Solutions
The solutions are available, to help you make your decision!
Mar 30, 2011 / Crossword / The Nation