Martin Scorsese Started the Fire: Hugo and The Bad Thing
...the Bad Thing is arbitrary and senseless is not beside the point; it is the point. As Event, it signifies “arbitrariness.” And while it’s a clumsy bit of writing –...
Variations on a Theme: Forgotten Terrorisms
...The anarchist belief in violent direct action, formulated in the policy of 'propaganda by the deed' (rather than by the word), reflected the particular bitterness of these struggles....
Beauty Blogosphere Summer Solstice
...my entire world of "sellouts" vs. "non-sellouts" upside-down and I began to realize that the whole thing was a bit more complicated and that maybe I shouldn't be all Judge...
What Does a Woman Know?
...turned out to be a Nazi and died a horrible death. The Mummy presents women a little bit differently. The one main female character, Evelyn Carnahan, is a scholar herself,...
Judging Books by Their Covers
...a bit exaggerated, though coming in so many octave ranges they are hard to ignore. It might be more useful to say print is changing and in our attention economy,...
The Withdrawal Method
...the matter?” Distaste for the work of coupledom makes a bit of shop discipline necessary. Kipnis observes that “the well-publicized desperation of single life — early death for men; statistical...
Ars longa, vita brevis
...She has written her books, and they remain. The reporter who doxed her attempted to justify himself with this bit of weaseling: “[B]y announcing that she would lie on occasion,...
Glossary
...his pants, and flames licking up his back. He put down the pharmacists, chugged a bottle of pills, yelled “To the commune, dick-licks!”, and bit a sizable chunk of flesh...
Pop at the End
This is what the end of the world sounds like
The New Inquiry Vol. 55: Testing
...the university system as both constantly struggling and in competition with the private universities which are taken as the benchmark of academia against which all others must be evaluated. “We...
City Under Siege
...Cities Under Siege with a chapter about “countergeographies” that might be created to overturn this new military urbanism. The discussion comes a bit late in the game—on the order of...
Editors' Note, Vol. 34: California
...such real-estate bait-and-switches. People elsewhere are heavily invested in how the state appears, its lucrative fantasy coming to dominate and determine conditions on the ground. But the best real estate...
Nice to Meat You
...and for a brief, uncanny moment, they were honest about it. I am not the first commentator to be drawn almost involuntarily into the territory of creepiness. Most notably,...
Uncertain augury
...bit, but feebly. The hawk sat still, looked down at the gathering crowd, who were all saying, hawk, or eagle, and all taking pictures. The hawk went back to tearing...
Lucky Number Seven
...external circumstances can more drastically affect the lives of working-class individuals. At age seven, Sue, Lynn, and Jackie giggle, squirm, and fall all over each other. They lack the composure...
The Impermanence of Beauty Work
...It’s not quite flow, because I think of that as being more about being engaged in the activity itself. While I might be thinking a little bit about, say, whether...