A Woman in a White Dress
All too often, a woman in white is a ghost. Or she is Ophelia, gone mad and trailing her dreams behind her. White is fragile in so many ways.
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Our Doomed Pursuit of Happiness
It is enough, Montaigne insisted, to simply live. If someone is upset about wasting time, muttering, “I have done nothing today!” he scoffs, “What, have you not lived? That is not only your fundamental occupation, but your most illustrious one.”
They Snuck Into the Panthéon and Saved Paris
Once, in the middle of the night, six Parisian teenagers managed to get into the Panthéon in Paris. They went on to explore the catacombs, set up an underground movie theater and art exhibits, and repair Paris's neglected treasures.
If You’re Going to Drive that Road You Need to Know a Few Things
Layla, who helps sell Sugartown watermelons at a roadside stand and is a very good girl. Photo by John Griswold. First, you best get on it, if you hope to drive that road. A lot of the beauty, charm, and squalor remains, but it has changed in the…
Steinbeck Could Not Save to the Cloud
The Cloud has transformed our relationship to physical information. We no longer have occasion to be brave, to at least pretend nonchalance. We have no reason to make a fresh start.
There It Is (Again), That Funny Feeling
Lynd Ward, from ‘Madman’s Drum,’ 1930. I have written before about preparing book manuscripts for publication. But not only does each time feel different; assembling my own collections feels different from finishing single-arc books, and editing others’ books feels different yet again. A few weeks have…
Whacked Out Sports: A Cultural Clue?
This show is so White, so retro-male, so ripe for scathing dismissal by the snooty elite. There is even a class overlay.
Found Objects: Proof That Hell Awaits
Photo by John Griswold A moving box (SMALL / PEQUEÑA), taped shut and cut open several times, is labeled with a Sharpie: LIBRARY / KNICKKNACKS / & Watches / & Dive Challenge Coins. Inside are journals, books, and a little wicker basket holding money from several countries, the…
The Vanishing, Civilizing Art of Marginalia
Notes jotted in a margin carry on a conversation with future readers. Not with the authors themselves, mind, and often it is lucky for them that they remain oblivious.
Found Objects: Postcard to the War Department
Photo by John Griswold A yellowed postcard was found recently on page four of an old edition of Victor Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris, the top of which begins, as a continuation of the previous page, “Fools. On that day there was to be an exhibition of fireworks in…