September 30, 2014
The Most Important Thing in the Universe
Jennifer Michael Hecht, at the end of her poetry collection Funny, writes, “Jokes are one part suddenness and one part grief. That’s why jokes are the most important thing in […]
September 14, 2014
Wreckage
Early childhood: what a wipeout, memory-wise. I was alive for Woodstock, for the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, for the moon landing, for the better part of […]
September 2, 2014
The Dutiful Mob, Reconsidered
It’s the day after Labor Day, which means—at many college campuses, including the one where I teach—that fall classes are starting. In constructing the syllabus for my poetry workshop, I’ve […]
August 27, 2014
Mid-Morning of the Planet of the Selfies
A few weeks ago I started flagging stories about selfies. I’m not sure why. I think I wanted to make the late-to-the-party claim that the selfie may be the emblem […]
August 12, 2014
Robin Williams, What a Concept
“His bearing is intensely Zen and almost mournful, and when he’s not putting on voices he speaks in a low, tremulous baritone—as if on the verge of tears—that would work […]
August 6, 2014
Laurels and Hardy
I’ve been thinking about the North Carolina poet laureate controversy. As you may have heard, Governor Pat McCrory appointed Valerie Macon, a self-published and (from the little evidence available online) […]
July 31, 2014
Miranda July, Part 2
A few weeks ago I posted a short appreciation of Miranda July’s 2007 story collection, No one belongs here more than you. Since that time, the New Yorker has temporarily […]
July 22, 2014
Goodnight Reuben Bright
Sunday’s Times was chockablock with poetry. Daisy Fried lit fireworks for Dan Chiasson’s Bicentennial; Stephen Burt quoted liberally (and salaciously, by Gray Lady standards) from Patricia Lockwood’s Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals. […]
July 10, 2014
Miranda July, Part 1
I’m calling this post “Miranda July, Part 1” because I want to promise (to myself, anyway) that I’ll continue to think about the writer-filmmaker-performing artist in the weeks to come. […]
July 6, 2014
Djoker in Five. Roger That.
What a week for Novak Djokovic! Did you hear that he’s getting married? Also, he won the Gentlemen’s Singles Championship at Wimbledon. Against the great Roger Federer. (I may need […]
June 30, 2014
A Tournament of Hunchbacks
Last month, at the University of Michigan, I took part in a faculty institute on pedagogy and the arts. We shared teaching strategies and classroom can-you-believe-its. (One professor reported a […]
June 28, 2014
Send in the Contemporary American Comic Fiction Writers
In the June issue of The Atlantic, Julie Beck offers a quick roundup of some recent studies on laughter. My favorite, by far: “Women undergoing in vitro fertilization were 16 […]