Hunger as an Instrument of Social Control
Under conditions of capitalism, it may be that you are what you don't eat
Trivial Pursuits
Why do we think of the kleptomaniac as being usually a woman, and why do we find her so alluring?
Fear of an Ape Planet
Debating the blinkered Hollywood take on race in films like The Help and Rise of the Apes only helps perpetuate it Positive or negative, reviews of a new film…
To Sit on a Throne of Teeth, Graced With a Crown of Teeth
This has been a summer of blown opportunities, at least insofar as cinema allegedly devoted to taking those opportunities goes.
The More Things Change
(Images from AD: New Orleans after the Deluge, Josh Neufeld, 2009) NOLA’s Ongoing Disaster By Alex Gecan As I write this in late August, a plume of…
Hometown Unglory
Ash Wednesday: 8:30am, 2004/5 George Shaw’s Tile Hill paintings explore the daunting provisionality — and banality — of identity “A Sly and Unseen Day,” at the…
Aux Armes (or Not)
Sfar would have been better off directing a film entitled Serge Gainsbourg: Badass than attempting to martyrize the misogynistic provocateur.
Upping the Antihero
You’re a good cop, but a loose cannon. Give me your badge and gun. Most Americans could write this scene and probably fill in the…
Standard Gawker English
Writing to please or writing to persuade?
Place Matters
As more aspects of our lives are digitized, literature is an increasingly crucial means of expressing, understanding, and preserving places and their influences. At the…
Paradoxes: On Suicide and Literature
Even unfinished, it is a brilliant work, an exploration of some of life’s deepest challenges, and an enterprise of extraordinary artistic daring. David set out…