June 17, 2015
Teach This, Not That!
I don’t mean that, of course. Whatever “this” and “that” are, I probably believe in teaching both of them. (This post’s title is really just a silly tongue-firmly-in-cheek reference to a […]
January 15, 2015
Catching Up on Bestsellers
As a kid, I never read novels, graphic or otherwise. My brother read comic books, choose-your-adventure stories, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, an assortment of Afrocentric tomes from Black Arts Plus, down […]
July 27, 2014
Jody Gladding’s TRANSLATIONS FROM BARK BEETLE
I ordered a copy of Translations from Bark Beetle by Jody Gladding (Milkweed Editions, 2014), but it never arrived and I think if it was delivered to another by accident […]
July 2, 2014
Matthew Zapruder’s SUN BEAR
For a few weeks, I avoided Sun Bear, Matthew Zapruder’s newest collection of poetry, a book I was very, very happy to see in the store and to purchase. It […]
November 28, 2012
Reading a Legible Reality: Barthes and the Infinite Text
While perusing the KR blog archives this past week, I came across a great post by Hilary Plum about the Occupy movement, social vicissitudes, and the trouble with the “us” […]
June 22, 2012
A Humument: a lesson in un-reading (ii)
The adjective boustrophedon in Greek translates to “as an ox turns in plowing”: from right to left, from left to right, and the from right to left again. And so […]
February 12, 2012
Short Takes: Toward a New Past
A defense of the virtues of an art that’s seemingly more and more lost each year: memorization and declamation. William Gibson, on science fiction authors’ hankering for the way things […]
August 8, 2011
Short Takes: One Flew Into the Rabbit Hole
Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, responding to a nurse during a government-sponsored LSD trip as part of numerous experiments he participated in while studying creative […]
July 23, 2010
Short Takes
Celebrating fifty years, this one’s for the mockingbirds Once again, this blog’s to blame, they’re saying it’s time to take it slow [warning: no take backs if you end up […]
February 26, 2010
Reading, An Invitation
Last week, I went to an event that featured Junot D??az. He read from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and then fielded questions from the audience. Towards the […]
February 22, 2010
Between Books
“The moment when one meets a book and knows, beyond shadow of doubt, that that book must be his–not necessarily now, but some time–is among the happiest excitements of the […]
February 1, 2010
Down and Out (On Where We Look When We Read)
We were in London for four days before my partner noticed the LOOK LEFT and LOOK RIGHT markings on the road, and then only after I pointed them out. He’d […]