Clockwise, from upper left: Geoff Ward, Jordan Weber, Inez Bordeaux, and Michael Allen The question in yesterday’s Zoom event hosted by the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, in St. Louis, was how artist residencies, art institutions, universities, and activist organizations might work together for social justice. How do you measure…
A screenshot from ‘Tulpan,’ starring Askhat Kuchencherekov as Asa. A stampede of camels groan in the red dust; a dog barks as it streaks past a yurt, in pursuit. This is the opening of Tulpan (2008), a Kazakh narrative film streaming now as part of Filmatique’s Foreign Language…
A still from ‘The Booksellers,’ distributed by Greenwich Entertainment. The documentary The Booksellers was set to release theatrically in 2020, but the pandemic hit, and it made its way to Amazon Prime. The film is a group portrait of lovesickness—the ecstasy, labor, and sometimes disappointment of the…
Theodore Dreiser, courtesy of National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (CC0) One of the literary figures whose association with St. Louis has been mostly forgotten is Theodore Dreiser, author of the novels Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy. Dreiser lived and worked in St. Louis for 16 formative months, from November…
Work done by Eileen Mayberry, at the ‘Find A Grave’ site. The website Find A Grave was started in 1995 by a man named Jim Tipton, as an amateur tribute site for celebrity graves. It became a commercial site in 1998 and began posting photos, submitted by…
Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) in a screenshot of C-SPAN coverage of the impeachment trial. The prosecution rested today, in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, five to six hours ahead of schedule. The Senate is adjourned until noon Eastern, Friday, when Trump’s lawyers will mount a defense, on…
Lawyer Bruce Castor in a screenshot from ABC News coverage of the trial. The genuine emotion on the first day of the impeachment trial, today, came from US Representative Jamie Raskin, of Maryland’s 8th District, who is the lead manager for the second impeachment of Donald Trump. Raskin’s opening…
Photo by John Griswold When I was a kid, in the Midwest, spinach was obviously good for you because it came hygienically frozen in blocks straight from the factory and was bitter as sin in the pot. Who would ever have eaten that boiled mush if it did not…
Screenshot from a trailer for ‘The Dig.’ The problems for writers of historical fiction may be little different from those of anyone using “true events” as the basis of their stories. Sources may be more distant, but the real issue remains: which drama, among the welter of…
Screen capture from NBC’s coverage of the Inauguration. Inaugural Day was bright and cold, with 200,000 small flags replacing an audience on the Mall, and the capital an occupation zone. The number of deaths from Covid passed 400,000, more than our WWII dead, as the sitting President winged…