February 2012
12 posts
WatchMaking of “Bottle” (in 1 minute) (by Kirsten Lepore)
Sine Qua Non
Your absence, father, is nothing. It is nought—
The factor by which nothing will multiply,
The gap of a dropped stitch, the needle’s eye
Weeping its black thread. It is the spot
Blindly spreading behind the looking glass,
It is the startled silences that come
When the refrigerator stops its hum,
And crickets pause to let the winter pass.
Your absence, father, is nothing—for it is
Omega’s...
The Song in the Dream
The song itself had hinges. The clasp on the eighteenth-century Bible
had hinges, which creaked; when you released the catch,
the book would sigh and expand.
The song was of two wholes joined by hinges,
and I was worried about the joining, the spaces in between
the joints, the weight of each side straining them.
—Saskia Hamilton
“I tell them, “I write this shit for you!” But a lot of writers won’t admit to...”
– Sherman Alexie in conversation with Neko Case (via gwendabond)
The Storytellers of Empire — www.guernicamag.com —... →
Tony Kushner
The whole point of citizenship, that second vocation incumbent upon all of us, upon all people fortunate enough to be enfranchised, or semi-, demi- or quasi-enfranchised, upon all of us who are fortunate enough to live our lives in a still-functioning, if extremely imperfectly functioning, democracy, in which the notion of citizen, the word “citizen,” still has meaning, power and value—the whole...
January 2012
20 posts
“California has more people with more opinions than other states,” said Mark...”
– Wildlife Activists Follow Lone Wolf’s Trek Into California - NYTimes.com
The Year in Pictures: Part I - The Big Picture -... →
Downton Abbey Season 2 on PBS: Movies TV: GQ →
I don’t know what I want to do with this, but something.
Hopkins, on an early Yeats poem
“It was a strained and unworkable allegory about a young man and a sphinx on a rock in the sea (how did they get there? what did they eat? and so on; people think such criticism very prosaic, but common-sense is never out of place anywhere…)”
Culture Desk: The Year in Reading: Poetry : The... →
December 2011
15 posts
Search : The New Yorker Best of 2011 →
PG Wodehouse: a life in letters | Books | The... →
OUPblog » Blog Archive » Listening to the... →
Does Poetry Have a Social Function? by Stephen... →
Vaclav Havel →
Dear Santa Claus
A favorite of ours FOUND in Rockford, Illinois by Meghan Dillard:
I do not want to be on the naughty list. It was not my scissors and it was not my idea to cut off Christine’s hair. I would not have done it if I could do it over again I would not. Plus, I told Christine already that I am very sorry. She said I’m not the worst sister in the world. She said you should still send me...
No Tells: Best Poetry Books of 2011 - Lucy... →
“I don’t care for the feeling I had when I realised that the virtual book I...”
– James Meek · In the Ghost Library · LRB 3 November 2011
November 2011
12 posts
Books of the year 2011 | Books | The Guardian →
At Occupy Berkeley, Beat Poets Has New Meaning -... →
