For years we have heard the country’s name repeated as a hotbed of problems, but conflict in Afghanistan exists on two levels: disputes among its own ethnic groups, some of which are Sunni and some Shia, and comic-book-crude clashes between superpowers, zapping each other like Godzilla and King Kong above the mountain peaks.
When I was single and grumbling about it, my mother used to say, “All it takes is a day.” One shift of the kaleidoscope, one chance meeting, and bitter loneliness drops away and the world glows with promise. That fast, your life has a different direction, a different set of possibilities.This is how it must have felt, though in a very different context, for the conservators who first X-rayed Johannes Vermeer’s quiet painting, "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window."
Dragonflies’ names tell the story: black darter, blue dasher, brown hawker, green darner, wandering glider, widow skimmer, four-spotted chaser. What would it feel like to fly that free?
The stamps do not lie: Their colors pop out of a solemn black background, and the skulls evoke grief, death, and decomposition as surely as poor Yorick’s skull did for Hamlet. But there is no sense of alas, no horror or repulsion. These are sugar skulls, delightful to take into ourselves.
WWII’s most famous correspondent, a combat nurse, and the need to remember our sacrifice.
American Argument provides historical depth in our consideration of how Blacks and Whites came together to enact the ritual of conversing across racial lines in the hope of better understanding each other. But it is remarkable how well it still speaks to us today, as aspects of that conversation have not changed.
Instead of trying to predict how soon the world will end or reaching for a static, reassuringly rigid worldview, we need to take in new information every day, brush our teeth with it, readjust our internal model of the world as we go.
Although Music by Max Steiner promises to be a must-read for anyone who wants an insider’s perspective on the music of Hollywood films, it also tells the tale of a semi-charmed life truly well lived.
Frank’s book is beautifully written, elegantly presented, and compellingly argued. The reader will not necessarily agree with every thesis advanced or each reading of an individual passage proffered. But that is not the point. The point is precisely to engage in that discussion without reserve.
She had likely been in more countries and combat zones than WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle and had helped save many lives, maybe even someone in your family. But few remember her from life, the records are mostly lost, and I know of no markers.