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.
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…
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.
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…
This show is so White, so retro-male, so ripe for scathing dismissal by the snooty elite. There is even a class overlay.
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…
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.
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…
Many of us are vulnerable to suggestion, our memories blurry and uncertain. But intense emotion can also etch an experience in memory with every detail intact. Overly involved therapists can push a certain narrative until their client believes it verbatim. But the mind can also shelter us from pain and release it back to us little by little, as we can handle it.
(Photo by Patti Gabriel) When I learned that Jovenel Moïse, president of Haiti, had been assassinated—after riots and demands that he resign—something inside me crumpled. Again? I was in Haiti during its 2010 presidential elections, along with the professional photographer who shot the image above, Patti Gabriel. We…