Found Objects: Myself
I looked and looked. It was like looking at another part of myself.
Arts & Letters
How Dickens Helped Us Understand “Neurodiversity”
Mr. Dick and his kite may offer an ideal escape from troubled thoughts, but we are drawn to him because he is also heartfelt enough to be real. As pointed out earlier, ‘David Copperfield’ is Dickens’s most autobiographical work. We read fiction because it is not fact. We also read fiction because it never strays too far from fact.
The Work That Holds the World Together
I thought I had changed: I had started talking to Joe, the guy on the margins. I had asked his name and even brought him lunch. For a moment, I patted myself on the back, sure I was not one of the “cold ones.” On the way home, though, something felt off.
Two Nigerians at a Table
How do we fall in love with the countries we ran from? What is the strange alchemy that turns distance into longing, and absence into affection? Distance is not impartial. It decides what to soften and what to sharpen. For some, absence polishes memory into a shining gem; for others, it preserves the edge of the blade.
The Art and Science of Hold Music’s Best Soundtracks
When we are up against the inevitable limits of human invention and our capacity for patience, it is the music that matters most.
“Play Like Satie”
“Haunting” is the first word that comes to mind. The melody’s ghost lingered, changing the very air. The Gymnopédies, a word I now know means “Three Nude Dances,” were indeed bare: simple, vulnerable, tender, wistful, melancholy.
What Old Dogs Know
Do these people not know that now is now is now is NOW?
Billy Joel Documentary Like a Good Novel
One of the reasons I like the term “novelistic” for these sorts of documentaries is that it stresses how they deal in the mysteries of creation, its meaning, and its emotion. Joel has a song from 1977 called “Vienna,” with the refrain, “When will you realize / Vienna waits for you.”
The Nuclear War Films We Refuse to See, but Must See
The War Game and Threads have no time for dramatic trifles of characters dealing with nuclear war from afar, or even the relative safety of a military bunker. Instead, both films plunge us deep into their dreaded, adrenaline-soaked horrors.
The Asian Erasure Trap, or How Being the “Model Minority” Makes Everyone Feel Safer
The air shifted. Some smiled with relief, others looked away. In that moment, I realized what the “model minority” concept protects is not me, but the comfort of those around me. Politeness asks us to trade particularity for harmony, difference for calm.