Body and Soul: Damien Chazelle’s “Whiplash”
We thought Whiplash would be a fun movie to catch before dinner the night of our anniversary.
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MQR Blog
Bend Me, Shape Me
This essay discusses contemporary genre-bending texts on the occasion of Miranda July’s new book The First Bad Man, which includes an online auction of objects mentioned in the book.
Inside the Goat
So I agreed to wear the goat. First I was fitted with a yellow hardhat to protect my delicate scalp as the goat was lowered over my head. The goat was massive. In truth, it was (mostly) just a papier-mâché goat head, but it covered the entire top of my body, resting warily on the hard hat, steadied by my hands. As with most of the charming but hastily made Honey from the Heart puppets, I had to wear its imperfections as well. Staples stuck, pointy end out, from where its joints came together. It was lopsided and difficult to balance. And I couldn’t see anything except my feet.
Little Instructions
Going through my parents’ bookshelves, where all the books of my life end up, is a distinctly pleasurable activity. Like a song, the titles stacked along the shelves contain distilled memories, and the best books are not actually the ones I’ve read countless times, but the ones I picked up only once. The books I’ve read time and time again give me the sensation of greeting an old friend, and the feeling is comfortable and sweet. “Oh, you again,” I think, my finger slipping across the spine. But the books that belong solely to one time and place, these books give me a tiny jolt, like encountering the name of an old crush whom I haven’t thought of in years. My finger will pause, and then tug against the lip of the spine to take a peek at the cover, to see if memory has warped, or amplified, the book’s original charm.
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The Gathering of The Conference of the Birds
* Kaveh Bassiri *
In recent decades, Farid ud-Din Attar’s 12th-century Persian masterpiece, Manṭeq al-ṭayr, has been the source for three new and revised translations, three illustrated adaptations (two for children), two expensive art books, and a number of theater and film adaptations. These translations and adaptations point to the rising importance of Attar’s poem in the English language. They are in conversation with Attar’s poem, bringing fresh and multifarious interpretations while building new homes for it in English.
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This Is Hard For Me To Say
Some recent nonfiction begs for a return to the discussion of how we define difficulty.
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The Riches of Content
by Zoe Tuck
…each writer points back outward, whether that is towards people, books, community, or place. To follow these generous clues is to experience another kind of plenty.
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5 Uncommon Tips on Your MFA Creative Writing Application
by Nathan Go
It seems that every year, a few applicants manage to get admitted to a handful of programs, begging the question whether the process is as random as one might initially think.
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David Bowie Is: An Experience
Is: the third person, singular, present indicative conjugation of the verb to be. As I traveled through the exhibit David Bowie Is, which on display at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art until January 4th – notably, the only US stop on the exhibit’s tour – I kept trying to figure out what it was about the title that felt unfinished to me.
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Animal Transmission
A look at “The Radio Animals,” a poem by Matthea Harvey.
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