In Berlin, Art Reckons With History
The experiences that are possible in Berlin are powerful and unsettling; they grab hold, forcing you to wrestle with them.
Dispatches
Jeff Bridges, Photographer
Behind the scenes of ‘True Grit’ with the Coens, by Jeff Bridges, courtesy of the artist I have always been a fan of Jeff Bridges’ acting but was surprised to learn this week he is an accomplished art photographer and sculptor whose work has appeared in Premiere and Aperture…
Diane von Furstenberg’s Little Wrap Dress
Diane von Furstenberg has always known she was meant to be here, meant to design. Back in high school, she was writing papers exploring beauty as a defense against death.
Why Fall Color Will Fade
Researchers are not exactly sure how it will all play out. Some say that warmer temperatures will mean longer growing seasons, so a later start to fall foliage. Others say that if trees start photosynthesizing earlier, they may turn color sooner.
The Shame Game
Maybe the crueler sorts of shame are having a resurgence not just because we have the technology but because we feel out of control. Maybe we are desperately hoping there is still a common moral standard to which others can be held. Or maybe we still believe, deep in our gut, that shame works, no matter how much pain it causes.
Sigh No More
Heaving a heavy sigh makes an eloquent statement. A full and heartfelt sigh is done with the mouth open, but that quick, gusty sigh through the nostrils? That is contempt.
Found Objects: That Stuff in Storage
Courtesy Self-Storage, Wikimedia Commons In storage lockers we offshore the domestic. We place there the things that will not fit in our homes, until they can be brought in from the cold. It is not direct metaphor, but something more like signal or sign, that the often unheated…
Living by the Die
The author of "The Dice Man”—that dangerous book that influenced billionaire Richard Branson and had a British gonzo journalist nearly trash his career and disappear—was not a jaded psychoanalyst named Luke Rhinehart. He was a mild, sweet English professor named George Cockcroft. Though he was married (faithfully, we presume) to the same woman for sixty-three years, he had a vivid imagination.
Back When Sex Ed Was Honest
More than common sense suggests that Missouri’s scrupulously limited information might be counterproductive. A raft of studies show that “increasing emphasis on abstinence education is positively correlated with teenage pregnancy and birth dates.” Positively correlated.
A Daily Visual Diary of the Early Covid Years
Courtesy Fantagraphics Books Steve Brodner’s Living & Dying in America: A Daily Chronicle, 2020-2022, is a fascinating and unusual graphic memoir. In the book’s 476 pages, Brodner has captured the feel of the first two Covid years by drawing one image every evening from that day. These range…