Reading her book was akin to stumbling upon a coworker’s diary (or, more realistically, an outspoken social media profile), an exercise I found simultaneously fascinating and mildly discomfiting.
Proud to be Un-American Read More »
This was the first of several instances like this, where joyful moments were interrupted with outages that seemed to mock you for your leisure, forcing you to stop whatever you were doing until some basic modicum of service had been restored.
I read through the drafts. All of them because I don’t want to make easily dismissible arguments against the Empire. The stakes are too high.
Petty Materialism: On Metaphor & Violence Read More »
An Inventory of Losses captures the imagination in individual time capsules that prompt us to reflect on our own losses.
An Inventory of Losses, by Judith Schalansky (New Directions) trans. Jackie Smith Read More »
Editor’s Note When the objects of an inquiry, in any department, have principles, conditions, or elements, it is through acquaintance with these that knowledge, that is to say scientific knowledge, is attained. -Aristotle; Physics (1;1) Dear Reader, In the summer of 2014, I was a sophomore enrolled at the University of Wisconsin – Madison taking
MQR Mixtape’s Issue 3: Material and Methods is Now Live Read More »
Music for the Dead and Resurrected is a timely antidote to popular over-identifications with nationally sanctioned narratives, the kind that disappears the nuanced stories that help shape an individual’s sense of home and purpose.
My writing can’t get away from the space in which it’s possible to commune with the dead, to have a second chance reckoning with those who are gone. I believe in hauntings, but I’m not entirely sure I believe in an afterlife. My writing likes to keep that door open all the time.
The Privacy of Magic: An Interview with Tea Obreht Read More »
So, when she told me not to leave the car as she prepared to respond to a potentially violent situation, I experienced a surge of protectiveness and guilt out of a dereliction of chivalry. I fought the urge to go with her, nodding to show I understood her authority. I became hyper-aware of the straps of the seatbelt binding me to the passenger seat of her police cruiser.
Tithe of the Assassins We don’t know what they did with the newborns or with their mothers (but we can imagine). Those able to escape had to ignore the desperate cries of the dying. Now great shopping centers are sprouting up like mushrooms in damp darkness, where light is a boiling TV screen. Many survivors
Tithe of the Assassins Read More »
I had been scanning the city, looking for something to remind me of the Kunming I once knew, and found the first continuity in this man and his madness.
