This Week in Poverty: A Little Help for the Long-Term Unemployed? This Week in Poverty: A Little Help for the Long-Term Unemployed?
230,000 long-term unemployed workers lost their benefits on Sunday and the system is about to get a whole lot worse.
May 18, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Greg Kaufmann
Occupy This Album Occupy This Album
A new collection featuring ninety-nine tracks of class-conscious music from ninety-nine artists.
May 17, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Peter Rothberg
Ohio Ohio
(A 2012 version of the Wonderful Town classic) With the rest of the states either solidly red or solidly blue, the election will be decided in nine or ten swing states. —News reports Why oh why oh why oh? Why did I ever leave Ohio? Why did I locate where, since it’s no swing state, Pollsters don’t trouble to track? Zero is my vote’s weight. Reason to vote? That’s what I lack. Oh why oh why oh did I leave Ohio? Maybe I better go O-H-I-O, Where I could have my vote back.
May 16, 2012 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Blind Spot: On Christa Wolf Blind Spot: On Christa Wolf
A postwar German novelist’s complicated legacy.
May 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Holly Case
Mother Natures: On Elisabeth Badinter Mother Natures: On Elisabeth Badinter
In The Conflict, the French intellectual takes American mothering to task.
May 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Szalai
Love, Sam: On the Letters of Samuel Beckett Love, Sam: On the Letters of Samuel Beckett
Samuel Beckett wants you to have a less bad day.
May 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
The Road to Hi Hat The Road to Hi Hat
Sunrise hurt the cat-owl’s eyes. Crows go to ground in the slim valley. Past Hard Shell, around through Softshell’s barnless swallows. Transhumance older than the hills: Up the mountain in May to see the spindly sourwood flowers. Down in the fall with the firelit honey. Even the river stones show early autumn: wet scarlet, sugar-maple bronze.
May 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Merrill Gilfillan
Cradle Knoll Cradle Knoll
All the bloodhounds in the world touch down. Wardens come from miles around. Last night a lazy dream, footage of a full range tossing under storm, wild zydeco wind up from the south via Hurricane Gap, leaves in the air, gullies surging, foaming brick-red— Van Gogh’s hair, sickle-cut, or General Sherman’s. Grouse drum on hazy ridges. Down the road a place called Muses Mills. White-throated sparrows sing their whisper-song. All the bloodhounds in the world can’t pin it down.
May 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Merrill Gilfillan
‘I Was There’: On Kurt Vonnegut ‘I Was There’: On Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut sought to fool us with his eyes wide open.
May 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
Why the Friendship Segregation on HBO’s ‘Girls’ Speaks to a Bigger Problem Why the Friendship Segregation on HBO’s ‘Girls’ Speaks to a Bigger Problem
For all our talk about the multiracialism of the millennial generation, the lack of interracial social connections is more than a coincidence.
May 10, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Salamishah Tillet