Abracadabra! The Magic of Words
We forget to ask what our own words are bringing into existence.
Arts & Letters
Inarticulate Jann Wenner Dislikes Inarticulate Blacks and Women
Alas, it is not the music that is the relic but Wenner himself.
Monk on the Run
“Monk on the Run” is shaped the way Warren Rosen has lived his life: moment to moment, choosing freedom over convention, scorning practicality, following impulses. Lots of digressions, in other words, and prose that is not always linear or logical but stays vivid, a paintbox spattered with bright personalities.“
Strange Fle$h
Joe was grieving his friend as he wrote “Strange Fle$h,” and when he finished the book, his new pseudonym was obvious. Joe West would be a stronger name—the short, plain, masculine sound of it, and the connection to Thom.As an author, though, Joe West is stronger because he is also Joe Schwartz.
Moving Along Through Time
I had been thinking about how long I had wanted to see the Connecticut coast, where my Griswold ancestors—the middle portion of an unbroken line of fathers and sons going back to the year 1200—first arrived in the Americas, but I was not planning to visit on this trip. It felt like a missed opportunity, but the drive was already long, and, besides, I knew my end of the story.
All-American Models Rescued from Oblivion
Atlantis was found in 2009 by the former owners of Megahobby.com, Peter Vetri and Rick DelFavero. In 2018 they bought the die-cast molds for many historic kits you may have bought as a kid from Revell, Monogram, and Aurora, the big model brands that suspended operations as the companies and their assets reorganized.
Is Conflict the Only Way to Tell a Story?
Stories only work when there is conflict—that is the common wisdom. I grew up not knowing, or I would never have chosen to write. Only later, too late, was the truism hammered into my head, and the experience was as unpleasant as that cliché suggests.
A Taylor Swift Fan Experiences the Rites of the Altar—But From a Distance
Taylor’s concerts serve as sacred places where fans come together and experience collective effervescence with fellow fans. One may not have any Swifties in their day-to-day life; thus, an occasion like this allows us to band together with those who also cling to Taylor’s lyrics. Every lyric, every melody is chanted with a fervor that surpasses mere admiration; it is a manifestation of devotion.
Little Egypt, Queens
A Duzan meal, Queens, New York. Photo by John Griswold Sometimes you know the universe is at work when the metaphorical intersects with the personal. When my car suddenly shuddered and seemed to slip out of gear as I was trying to get over the Ed Koch Queensboro…
The Real Stanley Kowalski
From Poland to St. Louis with dreams, back to Europe to fight, back to St. Louis to drink, and make shoes, and die. He had no idea his name would live on—let alone make generations of playgoers wince and recoil. The blame for that can be divvied up between Tennessee’s father and one of his lovers.