The Asian Women Named Mary
Witness the “woman” of “Asian descent.” Is this the face of waiting? Of looking? Of becoming? Of otherizing? Did she shuffle to the chair before sitting? Did she walk quickly?
Arts & Letters
Pronouns Are Ruining Our Lives
We need to abolish pronouns altogether. And not for the reason you think.
Conclave Breaks the Seal of Secrecy
This extraordinary film reveals the Vatican’s secretive and shadowy aspect, easily seen as sinister but felt by insiders as plain necessity.
This Sporting Life is Cinema’s Ultimate Portrait of Manhood
Watching ‘This Sporting Life,’ the viewer marvels at how Machin keeps on “winning” at every turn yet still fails to find the elusive victory he craves.
Gossip from the Hôtel Biron, Where Paris’s Later-Famed Artists Were Housemates
Rodin, Camille Claudel, a free-spirited dancer named Isadora Duncan, nineteen-year-old Jean Cocteau, the painter Henri Matisse, and Rainer Maria Rilke--all housemates at a shabby hotel in Paris. Imagine the drama.
The Strangeness in Us
When I was little, I had a recurring nightmare. I would float to the laundry room, a small tiled room next to the kitchen, and open the door. Or try to. I would push the door handle down, throw my body against the wood but it would not budge, only wobble a bit as if something else pushed back. Then wind or an unseen hand would seize and suspend me in the air.
What if C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien Had Never Met?
What a wild coincidence, that Lewis and Tolkien were buddies at Oxford. Except, an acclaimed new graphic novel suggests, it was not coincidence at all
How Amazon’s Catalogue Triggers Our Collective Memory
Like vinyl LPs, analog culture has invaded the margins of all things digital in order to treat us all to a bit of nostalgia. Thumbing through ‘Unwrap Joy,’ I was flooded by a surge of memories involving print catalogues of seasons past.
Politics, Protests, and Prose
Politics behind the scenes remains a mystery to much of the public. I have always felt the inner workings of the political machine were shrouded in mystery. This summer, not only did I peek behind the curtain, but I became one of those cogs.
A Jesuit’s Reluctant, Beautiful Confession
Roberto Bolaño is having a moment. Where better to start than "A Night in Chile," a slim, hypnotic, relentlessly compelling masterpiece.