I’ve been thinking about Facebook a lot lately. Or maybe I don’t mean *lately.* Maybe I should just come clean and say: I think a lot about Facebook. Who doesn’t, really?
Why Fiction Writers Need Facebook Read More »
I spent most of yesterday putting together notes to write a defense of James Franco and his work.
It was a March evening in Havana and still hot at 6 pm. I was on my way to my apartment in the central neighborhood of Vedado on a street called Zapata.
A Life in Three Acts: Havana Pipe Dreams Read More »
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, “things you can do” books were sprouting like weeds.
It’s the cruellest month: lilacs, dead land, spring rain…you know how it goes. For several reasons this April has seemed particularly dismal to me, not in small part due to an car accident that occurred earlier, in March.
The “sparrow’s flight from dark to dark”: Eleanor Wilner’s “The Morning After” Read More »
I was out all day with friends playing basketball and eating Ethiopian food, and I also managed my fantasy baseball teams and watched My So-Called Life.
Although our lives cannot occur except in an historical context, many contemporary lyrics are written as though only personal history matters. It’s a great joy to encounter a poem grounded in history as thoroughly as Elizabeth Bishop’s “Brazil: January 1, 1502”, particularly one that begins with a cymbal crash, the seeming non sequitur or unusual plural.
Come A Little Bit Closer Now Baby: Elizabeth Bishop’s “Brazil: January 1, 1502” Read More »
Apparently, everyone got the memo on American Born Chinese before I did. Published in 2006, Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel is flush with accolades: a National Book Award Finalist, winner of the Michael L Printz Award, and a “top” pick of multiple publications, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Time Magazine, and Publisher’s Weekly.
Giving Chin-Kee A Chance: Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese Read More »
Welcome to the end of news, or at least the end of news as I know it. This week the New York Times introduced digital subscriptions for US readers of the Times online, a move which the paper has been planning for at least two years.
Coffee: Check! Organic Eggs: Check! New York Times: Mehh… Read More »
Stevens seems to have enjoyed facing the difficult dilemma of writing a poem knowing that, when it comes to the actual, “sense exceeds all metaphor” and it “exceeds the heavy changes of the light.” He loves struggling to come to terms with the limitations of language.
Come A Little Bit Closer Now Baby: Wallace Stevens’ “Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight” Read More »
