Reality was the theme of English class my junior year of high school. Organic reality versus manufactured reality versus hyperreality. Is something real because you’ve experienced it? Because it looks/feels/smells/tastes just like that other thing, the one you know is real? Is it real because the New York Times said so? Because Brietbart said so? […]
I just finished Rachel Cusk’s Outline, and I’m thinking, again, about motherhood. Or rather, the role of the mother. Or rather, roles. The roles of Outline’s narrator include: mother, ex-wife, writer. It is in that last capacity that she, an Englishwoman, has come to Athens, to spend a few weeks teaching a writing class, in […]
I go back to work this coming Monday, and no one would be more surprised than the me of three months ago to learn that I HAVE MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT IT. On the one hand, my movements and (part of?) my mind will less tethered. On the other, Per is curiouser and curiouser, as free […]
A few weeks ago, I finally made it to David Bowie Is, at the Brooklyn Museum (the first time I tried to go, the Saturday after it opened, there was a five! hour! wait! (not ideal when you’re carting around a baby)). The exhibit is a full-stop audio-visual spectacle, part documentary, part concert, part bohemian […]
I love Man Repeller‘s monthly Writers Club prompts — they’re a good exercise even when I don’t come up with anything worth sending in. Last month’s was a fan letter; I addressed mine to Shirley Jackson (whose ability to write in her head continues to amaze and inspire me). Dear Shirley Jackson, I first read the […]
[Writing love letters to my city is, it turns out, both fun and therapeutic. The first three are here; I’ll try to keep ’em coming!] It doesn’t sound particularly nice, does it: “Eastern Parkway.” Sounds like it would be wide and drab and dreary, colorless and featureless. But oh, the part of it that swings […]
When I was eight or nine and at the height of my Felicity Doll-catalyzed colonial America obsession, one of the books I read often was The Winter of the Red Snow. It was one of the Dear America books, those faux diaries that offered a child’s view on an important moment in American history. In […]
