It was almost two am. I was in the common room of my college dorm, reading The Story of a New Name, the second book in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series. It was Saturday; I had given up a night of partying and fun with friends to sit alone and read. Three of my friends came in and I was so engrossed in the book that I didn’t notice until they were a foot away from me. Two of them were visibly tipsy, eyes narrowed by tiredness. K leaned in and hugged me, relaxing all her body weight onto my shoulders, limbs loosening into sleep.
“Okay let’s go” the other two said and hoisted K up from me.
“Get high with that yet?” one of them says, looking at the battered copy lying in my lap.…
In most novels that have beautiful nature writing, nature only acts as a backdrop, a pretty painting and landscape to hold the real stories between people. I’d be spellbound reading those well-drawn details of beauty, of peace and green and spring. But The Overstory by Richard Powers takes it to another level, making those descriptions seem inadequate and superficial for something so grand and miraculous: trees. In response to the Overstory, the trees would say to the Romantic poets– Shelley, Byron, Keats, “You only like me for my looks? Nothing else?” Powers gives us that something else. He illuminates for us their history, biology, personifies their desires, fears, hopes, and very soul, beyond merely their commercial or aesthetic appeal. It brings forth the forest as an alive, dynamic system that’s buzzing with life and its own dramas at every moment, inside and underground.…
I take deep breaths, regulating my heartbeat after my child has a tantrum. I can stay calm until naptime when I will sit down to write or curl up to read. The ceiling has water damage, despite three roofers failing to find a leak. Miller Moths keep appearing in the bathroom, taking a break from their annual migration just to swoop at my face. When I write, I often focus on moments of wonder and discovery, but in the chaos of these days when my toddler barely sleeps and the house feels littered with unfortunate surprises, my dark side craves a scotch and about six hours alone. I dream of writing. I dreamed of this child. While balancing the two, my collection of Shirley Jackson books calls to me from the shelf in my workspace.…
Don’t remember how I found out, but I may have stumbled on it trying to find a classroom in my freshman year many decades ago. And it was the only thing that kept me going.
It wasn’t in any of the orientation booklets or pamphlets about adjustment to college life meant to make you feel at home that were displayed in the counselor’s office. It wasn’t referred to in the interviews or introductory talks or added to the list that made this college so much better than others. And I never heard anyone talk about it.
But the college sleeping room was always open, at least every time I went. You entered through a normal wooden door in one of the buildings, just like any other classroom or professor’s office door.…
We are all happier in many ways when we are old than when we are young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage. —Winston Churchill
When I’m in other peoples’ homes, I’m automatically drawn to their bookshelves. Books reveal a good deal about a person. Shelves full of Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy, James Patterson, and John Grisham logically suggest that their owners enjoy action, intrigue, murders, car bombings, and the challenge of solving crimes. We read for entertainment, information, and enlightenment. We read to learn what we need to learn about ourselves and our world.
Who has not wandered over to their own bookshelves and run their fingers across the spines, looking for just the right one—perhaps a volume remembered to hold epiphanies, comfort, lessons on the importance of forgiveness or the components of happiness?…
Within the first ten seconds of You Won’t Be Alone, an intriguing-enough sounding movie with Noomi Rapace concerning a witch in Macedonia, a cat is eaten alive by some creature off-screen. I didn’t find out what the creature was because I turned off the movie after listening to its little bones get pulverized in the monster’s maw.
And ya know? I’m fucking tired of watching cats die in movies.
It feels like this piece has been a long time comin’.
On-screen cat deaths are usually a punchline, a mistake, or the product of a sadist’s gruesome machination. They are the animal equivalent of the dead prostitute who is merely a stepping-stone to catching “the killer”.
In Dogtooth, a criminally sheltered teenager stabs a cat to death with a pair of garden shears because his father told him they are evil.…
Within the industrial design world, Eva Zeisel is a legend, but I had no idea when I began working for her. It was 2000, I was 24, and had recently moved to Manhattan. I responded to an ad in the Village Voice that promised $12 an hour for an administrative assistant to a designer. The next day, I took the number 1 train to 116th & Broadway and entered her large, cluttered apartment for an interview. Immediately inside were floor-to-ceiling overstuffed bookcases. “Come in dah-ling,” I followed the voice through a maze of tables dotted with lamps, vases, and bowls (which I’d learn were all her own designs) to find an ancient-looking woman. With fluffy white hair and cloudy eyes, Eva sat in a pink and gold wingback chair.…
