Films tend to lean left because they put a face on the human condition, and thus make it harder for those who feel that the disenfranchised and those who are different should be left out in the cold. It’s an emotional medium, which wants us to understand a character and situation that may or may […]
After years of anticipation for some, just nine months for others, birth is the single most important event of every human being’s life. Regardless of how much this event has been denigrated to a medical procedure, it is a special day – every single year, most of us observe the occasion and are aware that […]
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 […]
by Tyler Collison 1 The day’s focus was plyometrics—jump training. For roughly twenty minutes at the end of every volleyball practice, we would systematically hop around like frogs and one-legged kangaroos. In the matches prior to the discussed day, though, we hadn’t been “doing somethings amazing,” as our Romanian coach, Radu, would so adamantly and […]
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 […]
y sin que olviden sus típicas arañas… José Alfredo Jiménez If you’d have known the fame these suckers had, you wouldn’t have ushered so many outdoors when you’ve found them posted up perpendicular to the floor in the shadow on the back of your dresser, or in the perpetually dusky corner of your shower stall. […]
On a cold February morning in 2010, I found myself at a tall office building near 50th St. and 3rd Avenue in New York City. I’d been there before, in a dream possibly. The main lobby had rows and rows of elevators with different destinations. I entered one. It was gold-plated and warmer than the […]
by Tom Bair I can’t find New York. I’ve looked everywhere. It’s okay though. I’m not too worried. I lose things all the time, and so . . . so I’ve picked up many methods of recovery along the way. Retracing my steps, cleaning, doing something else, pacing furiously, crying, etc. Or I’ll check the […]
