John O’Brien, the head of the much-admired Dalkey Archive Press, has died. Here is a piece I wrote in December 2009, after a visit to the Press, when it was located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. O’Brien was in his element. —JG …
If the regime becomes repressive, Mohammed Mupenda added, “you can make a few good career moves snitching on your colleagues and neighbors, doing little else.” And there are cosmetic improvements: “Noisy minorities, bums, and panhandlers disappear from the streets, which visibly enhances the urban environment.”
As I wrote in September, my friend Charlie bought my kids and me a ticket for a Willy Wonka-ish contest. Promoter and businessman David Klein, who likes to be called The Candyman, is giving away a candy factory in Florida, and the winner will come from…
I miss hugs, an accidental brush against a stranger’s arm, the downy head of a friend’s baby as I curve my hand to support it. But above all, I miss how people smell. The soft, milky smell of that baby’s skin. Exhalations of coffee, garlic, chocolate. The drench of heavy…
So often we walk at someone else’s pace, keeping up with a companion’s long strides or the pedestrians jostling alongside us. Sauntering requires a deliberate aimlessness, an ease.
A screenshot from ‘Nomad,’ distributed by Music Box Films. The film Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin was shown at Tribeca and Telluride, and on the BBC, in 2019, but it is just now available in the US, on several platforms. The film is a documentary on…
The theme is coming clear: Principle is sacrificed in order to either amass money or protect money. But what about the tortuous pursuit of equality and justice in the United States? On the surface, that does not fit the pattern.
If a police officer or a soldier came into view, our first impulse would be to step into the shadows. If light glared, we would keep our heads down. If we got arrested for insubordination or treason or somehow thwarting the State, we could try to plead our case in court and might even prevail—as long as the judges were nonpartisan, detached from any political agenda.
Imagine if some of us were in our cups—let’s say we had a day off and a backyard big enough to social-distance—and the topic turned to military service. I guarantee that long before we reached the dregs, veritas would come spilling out: We have very different ideas on what “service” means.
On screen, even something happening in real time does not feel live. When does a piece stop being theater and become film, I wonder.