Culture

Mercury

Night Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist Night Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist

Punitive yet salvific, austerity is the ideology of a country that has turned against its own culture.

Nov 9, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Marilynne Robinson

slow poem slow poem

slow things heard in old songs sad songs sung by the sides of old inns dry roses clutched by a lover a wedding dress downriver you will ask them their names the women who remember will ask you in turn where you come from inside this small country you are writing a book it’s unfinished the evening enfolding you slowly a soreness in the fingers who are you they ask you will get in the car with the mirror with the silver flaking in the back the book will receive much criticism you knew it from the story the bride gone downriver where dusk pulls the sunset quarter after quarter so many have written they will ask you with roses will ask what to call you by the river where you come.

Nov 9, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Rodney Koeneke

Times Squared

Times Squared Times Squared

Jem Cohen’s Newsreel No. 1, Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre, Andrew Niccol’s In Time

Nov 9, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Side by Side: On Britain’s School Wars

Side by Side: On Britain’s School Wars Side by Side: On Britain’s School Wars

Melissa Benn attacks the deepening rift of privilege and privatization in Britain’s secondary schools.

Nov 2, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stefan Collini

improphised improphised

               1imagine peter, not nodding over his palms that dawn, but praying the vindictive                2prayers of the righteous, drawing enough testosterone up from his balls to light                3all the dew in the garden afire, more than enough to keep him awake, enough                4even to make him slap judas’s silvery lips before they could kiss the sacrifice,                5causing chaos among the spear- bearing romans : imagine him alive with the fury                6of love and utterly blind to the lacerated look on his friend-of-friends’ face, denying                7nothing, not his name, not his faith, not his rage, hurling affirmations at his inquisitors—                8yes, i am the man! : this peter, all flesh and flood, imagine him murderously steadfast,                9less rock than stone, a self- made weapon, still weeping at the cock’s crow, every pre-                10diction re-writing itself anew in his woeful image : human if he did and human if he didn’t.

Nov 2, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Evie Shockley

Shelf Life

Shelf Life Shelf Life

Rita Dove's Penguin Anthology of 20th Century Poetry.

Nov 2, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jeremy Bass

American Idol: On Nietzsche in America

American Idol: On Nietzsche in America American Idol: On Nietzsche in America

Why early twentieth-century Americans—from anarchists to Baptist ministers—fell for the philosophy of Nietzsche.

Nov 1, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Ross Posnock

Whose News? On Race and the American Media Whose News? On Race and the American Media

News for All the People is a journalistic morality tale.

Nov 1, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Diane Simon

Mu-Mu ♥ Condi Mu-Mu ♥ Condi

Muammar el-Qaddafi had an “eerie fascination” with Condoleezza Rice and kept a scrapbook on her.—News reports   Though always with that nurse (the sexy blonde) he Apparently had quite a crush on Condi. So if you called her cold, then you forgot At least one guy sincerely found her hot.

Oct 26, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin

This Is Just to Say: On William Carlos Williams

This Is Just to Say: On William Carlos Williams This Is Just to Say: On William Carlos Williams

A new biography shortchanges the poetic achievement of William Carlos Williams.

Oct 26, 2011 / Books & the Arts / James Longenbach

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