Billboards Billboards
Florida I-95 America Needs a Faith Lift; a pregnant woman with a stem rose and a pointing, bearded God quoting Jeremiah quoting God; a gray, washed-out steak: What Vegetarians Eat When They Cheat— or was it what the Vegetables ate? You could see where the grease once shone on the old meat. Inside, the silence. —Tell me something.v —No, you! We unbutton our pants. Arms jiggling over fifty-five, thighs spread out on the seat and as far as the eye can see: thousands of carfulls of spreading thighs, the feel and smell of the seatbelt nylon, cricked trapezii. V a s e c t o m y. Oh, to feel your hand on my knee! A lone willow in the field: textbook, and the toxic cows, the steak itself gnawing beside the flesh-filled cars, the rootless wombs that drive themselves.
Nov 5, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Sarah Trudgeon
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Insurrections of the Mind thinks insurrections ought to happen only in the mind.
Nov 5, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Richard Kreitner
Drawing a Frame Drawing a Frame
In his music and his prose, Virgil Thomson perfected a whimsically deadpan sensibility.
Oct 28, 2014 / Books & the Arts / James Longenbach
Strange History Strange History
John Lahr’s biography of Tennessee William gets mired down in psychoanalysis.
Oct 28, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Julia M. Klein
Civilian Objects Civilian Objects
Architecture lets us speak of the spoken indirectly.
Oct 28, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Michael Sorkin
Algeria Algeria
You eat a songbird From beginning to end. You pierce your gums With tiny ribs For a squirt of her liquor Down your throat. Mitterrand hid his pleasure & his shame Under a clean white napkin as His own blood mixed with his last meal. We are kept in the dark To be tender & fat. The ortolan bunting sings A beautiful song & Stains our teeth from behind.
Oct 28, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Sylvie Baumgartel
Short Pop Short Pop
Film and TV are plagued by duration creep. Just like work—or unemployment.
Oct 28, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover
‘With This Madness, What Art Could There Be?’ ‘With This Madness, What Art Could There Be?’
An Armenian-American writer asks if the Armenian obsession with genocide recognition is worth its emotional and psychological price.
Oct 21, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Meline Toumani
Pictures of Icarus Pictures of Icarus
With his cutouts, Henri Matisse tried to free himself from gravity.
Oct 21, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
What Are Movies Good For? What Are Movies Good For?
Awakening a sense of wonder and flooding a cinema with crucial realities.
Oct 21, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans