Spy vs. History
...says we don’t share a common humanity?” The closing torture sequence is shockingly original and a little bit unhinged (it leads the narrator into a mind-body crisis). But it also...
Redistribution and World Building
A conversation with K Agbebiyi, creator of the Disability Justice Mutual Aid Fund
Super Position
...remarked that comic book stories already operate a little bit like dreams: the same plot is repeated, obsessive-compulsively, over and over; nothing changes; and even as the backdrop for the...
Teaching While Black
...group of exceptionally sharp students, we were all feeling a bit playful. Students don’t tease me very often, so I was tickled and amused by the exchange between a few...
Collector's Item
...Walter Benjamin's "Unpacking My Library" is sort of the canonical account of collector-hood, but I am put off a bit by his talk of "real libraries" and being a "genuine...
Party Time
...anniversary of “reunification” with Macao (2009) go down a bit easier. In 2013, we find ourselves in the third year of the 12th Five-Year Plan (or “Guideline”), rubber-stamped at the...
St. Paul (A Screenplay)
...most zealous of the most zealous promoters of the traditions?’ ‘And aren’t the traditions for him authority and hate, racism and discrimination?’ Bit by bit the murmurings of the assembly...
Chinua Achebe, No Longer At Ease
...2013, and then again in 2015. First as tragedy and then as farce. These sorts of things happen, a bit like forest fires. You can track down the place where...
You and Mark Aren't Friends
...company, a PR construct, just like Andy Sparks. But the effacing work that goes into that, well, that is something. There is another Mark Zuckerberg out there who must be...
The Nuclear National Family
The Fukushima disaster exposed fissures in Japanese society that its familial politics tries to paper over
"Spaces where identity stutters and goes silent”
...quite a bit of regret for everything I didn’t discuss enough, or didn’t discuss at all. Silence is actually a really big factor in the novel--and it’s only here in...
Boy 2 Man
...conflict that splits Mason and Olivia, but when he reenters his children’s lives, Mason is a kind, empathetic, and -- if a bit flighty -- overall nurturing presence. A vastly...
Diner Forty Niner
...he himself struggled with a "lame back." S and fleas c ompounded the discomfort. These noxious insects, which "filled the air like dust," bit prospectors as they toiled, leaving uncomfortable...
Sewing Dissent
...as this behavior was, it was wholly consistent with respect for individual rights. Every bit as much citizens of the young republic as their parents, American children found themselves free...
History of Dialogue: Tamil Stories
...Tamils in the North, and in effect to destroy the Tamils in the area as an ethnic grouping. Rohini: I interviewed a senior army commander, who retired, he was waiting...
Beauty Blogosphere 9.21.12
...whether the company inappropriately contacted analysts during the bribery investigation, so the heat is still very much on Avon—not that that matters to the financial world, which saw a 2%...