June 2018
Robert L. Tsai On Langston Hughes

Equality is a central concern of Hughes’s work, but in his hands, the concept possesses a desperate, embodied—and thoroughly pragmatic—quality to it. There are serious inequities facing black Americans, he reports...
Read MoreVirginia Woolf On Not Knowing Greek

For it is vain and foolish to talk of knowing Greek, since in our ignorance we should be at the bottom of any class of schoolboys, since we do not know how the words sounded...
Read MoreReal Friends #3 by Elias Tezapsidis and Anthony Strain

Andy Cohen turned 50. Except on Instagram he said “allegedly I’m 50 today”. In addition to age being something that can be merely alleged, I enjoy the idea of forgetting your own birthday...
Read MoreThere’s no return from ’89…

On 18th March 1921 the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the Paris Commune was marked in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). Newspapers were emblazoned with headlines decrying the brutal suppression of the heroic Communards...
Read MoreHereditary’s Illusions

Hereditary is really about the power of art-making, and the movie’s artists are all female. Their artwork is craft-based, works that have long been associated with female labor...
Read MoreThe New Republic of North Macedonia

The Republic of Macedonia reached a deal with Greece on 12 June to change Macedonia’s name: it will now be known as Severna Makedonija, or the Republic of North Macedonia.
Read MoreTrump and America’s Evil by Ed Simon

If your politics are anything like mine, which is to say that you abhor wanton cruelties enacted against children, then surely, you’ve said it, or at least thought it – Donald Trump is an evil man...
Read MoreThe collapse of freedom and the rule of law occurred in increments…

Liberal democracy has enjoyed much better days. Vladimir Putin has entrenched authoritarian rule and is firmly in charge of a resurgent Russia. In global influence, China may have surpassed the United States...
Read MoreThe Shattering Din of the Morning Star by Lital Khaikin

Memory is struck into the air. Time is recalling itself, spring is recovering the body. “What is the name of the great double nest?” Mnemosyne, daughter of Earth and Heaven, writes the unearthing...
Read MoreCam Scott: Writing Drawing/Drawing Writing

If thought consists in circularity, we could begin where we propose to end, with a question in two directions: how is writing drawing? And how is drawing writing?
Read MoreAt this terrible Brexit moment…

The British creativity I grew up with – in pop, fashion, poetry, the visual arts and the novel – has almost always come from outside the mainstream: from clubs, gay subcultures, the working class and from the street.
Read MoreContesting Coyote Contests

Coyote killing competitions, where contestants vie to shoot the most animals, are held throughout the U.S. But some hunting groups are denouncing these events as unethical, and states from New Mexico to New York are considering bans on these and other wildlife killing contests...
Read More‘My neo-vagina felt like the confirmation that I had been born transgender’

I couldn’t write a book about sex, trans bodies and genitals, or the changes we make without being honest about my own inability to get it right or at least explore it openly and with self-respect.
Read More‘In a desert, all waters are holy’

My parents were both churchgoers, and when I first encountered the opening chapters of the Bible, I recognized the description there of an earthly realm stretched between waters above and waters below.
Read MoreWill Lament, and Love

In 1826, at the age of 20, John Stuart Mill sank into a suicidal depression, which was bitterly ironic, because his entire upbringing was governed by the maximisation of happiness.
Read MoreScott Manley Hadley on Jon Fosse

Of all the nations of Europe with a rich literary tradition, Norway is a country that seems–whether by accident or design–to export exclusively exquisite fiction...
Read MoreThe tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right...
Read MoreThe thing about new blooms is that they tend to bleed— / Those petals birthed / hugging close / that come warmer weather are tricked into jumping away...
Read MoreI spent a good part of my childhood at home staring outside my bedroom window, following the trail of planes approaching the nearby Paris airport in the sky from my banlieue. I envied the passengers...
Read MoreThe tea should be strong. For a pot holding a quart, if you are going to fill it nearly to the brim, six heaped teaspoons would be about right...
Read MoreThe thing about new blooms is that they tend to bleed— / Those petals birthed / hugging close / that come warmer weather are tricked into jumping away...
Read MoreI spent a good part of my childhood at home staring outside my bedroom window, following the trail of planes approaching the nearby Paris airport in the sky from my banlieue. I envied the passengers...
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