Quentin Tarantino’s most identifiable feature as a writer-director is his characters’ talking, talking, talking, often followed by violence triggered not by the talking, really, but by accident, coincidence, or stupidity.
(Shutterstock) https://commonreader.washu.edu/app/uploads/2024/04/empathy.mp3 A heart willing to welcome someone else’s pain inside. A brain with the superpower of unlocking other psyches. Skin so tender, anybody’s mood will brush against yours—then penetrate. Empathy seems a noble trait, potent and generous, an instant cure for injustice and xenophobia. I watch…
The tensions that wire our lives do not go dead. Every time I try to look away, they crop up again, disguised or insidious. But Sylvia Plimack Mangold fixed her gaze and stared them down.
Strong feelings shaded yesterday’s total solar eclipse in North America, ranging from worries about terrorism against big crowds gathered in rural areas, where first-responders would be overwhelmed, to fervent hopes for the rapture.
(Jakub Dziubak via Unsplash) Every so often the forces of new scientific findings and opinion columns align to produce a certain sense of dread and unease. In this case, that dread and that unease are acute if you believe in the power and pleasure of a…
Totality. Just the word feels like an exhale. The reassurance of awe, of completion. The promise of grasping an immensity whole, rather than contenting oneself with the usual sliver.
This is a concept country, like one of those cool demo cars that never get made because they are too flawed to be practical. Except, the nation did get made. We are still figuring out how to punctuate that reality.
Fans of Martin’s will be rewarded for watching more than three hours of documentary about his life. What emerges is a portrait of an anxious introvert acting like an extreme extrovert for fun and profit.
Nature is red in tooth and claw, I mutter to myself. But how could our gentle dog be so cruel?
Our sensual imagination has gone abstract, need-based, overclever, and devoid of substance.