Hip hop can deal with emotions sort of but it’s not a strength. Nas’s song about dancing with his dead mother made me cry but that is neither here nor there. Moms make me cry in general. Whatever. It’s an exception. Hip hop is style and virtuosity. Bach’s counterpoint produces linearity by complicating the relations […]
(thanks, Josh Keiter) “Philosophy and the Poetic Imagination” is a good post about the difference between expressive and communicative language. It sums up the day’s dominant theory of the place, not just of poetry, but, one might argue, of human understanding in general: “Poetry evokes a special kind of thinking — where we interpret ordinary […]
Conscientious inhabitants of art-spaces – makers, collectors, readers, and so on – respond to an intersection between expressive position and functional affect. This is a fancy way of saying that we care about the other people involved in artistic processes. But since, according to our common senses, it’s not what you say but how you […]
by lewis levenberg Mornings ride higher when their dull cacophanies remain muffled. At least, the sounds of waking, when they fail to rouse you, seem sweeter: think garbage trucks. Your neighbor’s alarm clock beckons, rude chirp and rattle, unless it finds barrier in wall, door, pillow. Sleeping late, though no self-sustained reward, requires quiet, but […]
by Brian Trimboli We’re brought up on stories and the overall meaning they convey to teach facts alongside moral values. But what if that knowledge is only surface deep to begin with? What if we, as writers, often think of the page as two dimensional, and forget the fundamental sounds of our voices toward saying […]
by Leigh Phillips 33 keeps wanting to undress itself, so put on more concealer instead. Liquid makeup / Fond de Teint Liquide. This one’s from Clinique, and it’s supposed to fight blemishes while it paints over a coat of 600$ prescription skin cream. What not to swallow: Duac Topic Gel (Clindamycin 1%, Benzoyl Peroxide 5%), […]
by Frannie M. There is a reason we write. There are many reasons. We write to persuade, to entertain, to move, to communicate, and to deceive. When we pick up a pen we have an intention, fully formed or not. There is no writing without voice, without intent, or purpose. Because voice is, I posit, […]
by lewis levenberg A few words, this week, on the vagaries of hanging out our shingle once more. We’ve encountered setbacks, delays, challenges, and so on. But we’re still dogging this startup—this conglomeration of our assets into publication, incubation, and focused curation—and it’s time to share what we’ve learned so far. Here’s to the phoenix, […]
by Tom Bair But youth is also that fragment of existence when one easily imagines oneself to be quite singular, when really what one is thinking or doing is what will later be retained as the typical trait of a generation. Being young is a source of power, a time of decisive encounters, but these […]
