The Problematic Political Messages of 'Beasts of the Southern Wild'
August 9th, 2012
“Hurt Into Poetry: On Poetry and Greece”By Stephanos Papadopoulos
Los Angeles Review of Books
The Puck Stops Here: A Hockey Lit Survey
November 11th, 2012
The Pump You Pump the Water From
Writing can't be planned for or predicted, and when it happens, when the surge begins, it brings a satisfaction like nothing else.
December 5th, 2011
The Queasy Question: On Rick Alverson's "The Comedy"
In Defense of 'The Most Walked-Out Film at Sundance 2012'
January 18th, 2013
The Room and the Elephant
On internet criticism, Wikipedia, and the waning of expertise.
June 7th, 2011
The Sheikh and I: Ghostwriting for a Crown Prince in Exile
Ghostwriting for a crown prince in exile
January 8th, 2013
The Sideways Gaze: Roland Barthes’s Travels in China
A unique record of Barthes’s failure to offer a portrait of China.
June 23rd, 2012
The Space Between the Lines Is Your Life
On neuroplasticity and narrative
July 15th, 2012
The State of the Union of Jane Austen, Fact and Fiction
January 27th, 2013
The Sum of Two Cubes (And the Uses of Literature)
An experimental essay on the potential of writing.
September 23rd, 2012
The Things We Carry
I wondered if O’Brien’s words, like explosive devices hidden in the humid jungles, had triggered these awful images, or if Iraq simply played forever in Mike’s head, a fractured repetitive loop.
November 18th, 2011
The Three Gunas: Breaking Up is Hard to Do
On Marriage, Writer’s Block and Transcendence
June 7th, 2012
The Time of Marx: Derrida’s Perestroika
Remembering Derrida's "Specters of Marx" lecture
April 23rd, 2013
The Time of Our Lives: On Christian Marclay's "The Clock"
As it ticks away, "The Clock" taps into the enormous storehouse of images bouncing around in our heads.
July 14th, 2011
The Tuxedo Theater: On filmmaker Warren Sonbert
October 21st, 2012
Genres
Film
"There is only one thing that can kill the Movies, and that is education." — Will Rogers... More
Science & Technology
"The nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not." — Gertrude Stein... More
Art & Architecture
"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." — Frank Zappa... More
Literary Fiction
"Mere flim-flam stories, and nothing but shams and lies." — Miguel de Cervantes... More
Television
"Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television." —Woody Allen... More