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 […]
Lucky for us, popular culture does not need to be affirmed or denied. It’s happening, and you and I, as members of the populace, are in it. This is not to say that there are not all sorts of ways to bargain with our position, en masse or otherwise. But this is to say that […]
Consumption of The Autobiographical Novel Justin Torres’ We the Animals is an admittedly autobiographical novel. Torres takes advantage of fiction’s freedoms as he pays attention to the careful placement of each object in each room. Like a doll’s house, it is the perfect replication of an image, a created memory. The reader is allowed […]
Tayari Jones’ novel Silver Sparrow tells itself in memory and present, retrospect and retelling. The prose simply happens. It slips underneath and into you. Moves you from inside. Poised in history but set in the intimacy of individuals, Jones calls forward icons and minutiae with equal reverie. Her details are invocations, passages through which characters […]
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 Tom Bair Much has been made of ABC’s latest high-gloss ensemble situation comedy, Happy Endings. The network debuted their suggestive title on Wednesday past, and boldly followed this premier by engaging the viewer with their crusty tip, or, in suit-speak, aired another episode. The jokey-thing just made could refer to the layer of cum […]
