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 29, 2011
Short Takes: An Irrational Beauty
John Burnside: “I always feel saddened by intelligent people who say, this can’t be true because it doesn’t work in terms of rationality. What does? Inspiration? Art? Romantic love? Having […]
August 22, 2011
Short Takes: Between Art and Work
Dean Rader: “Levine is a great choice for Poet Laureate, especially now. No living American poet has written more probingly or more beautifully about work than Levine. But, by no […]
August 15, 2011
Short Takes: The Anti-Canon
If you’ve ever felt frustrated with J. D. Salinger, James Joyce, Henry James, Miguel de Cervantes, or Thomas Pynchon, you’re not alone. Robert Pinsky in the Boston Herald: “I’m afraid […]
February 9, 2011
Short Takes
For your sweetheart, a top 10 Nabokov the lepidopterist (bonus points if you already knew that word) and ah! those memoirists (what to call her?) getting younger and younger talk […]
September 13, 2010
ShortTakes
Happy Dahl Day (and month!) “And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those […]
April 8, 2010
Short Takes
According to the new (omg!) Times Thursday Styles section’s “Crib Sheet” (which promises to be “a quick primer on the week’s hot conversation topics,” cause otherwise, we’re helpless, right?) you’re […]
December 2, 2009
Short Takes
A bookseller with a killer haircut receives Rhys “I think people are gradually starting to understand and accept the realness of unreal things,” -Haruki Murakami Van Gogh’s letters! In translation! […]
November 30, 2009
Short Takes
Is your Writer Blocked? Margaret Atwood (et al) suggests you pledge allegiance to your desk... (via Kirsten Reach!) a bit of fun with popular music: Shakira + OED = classic […]
October 29, 2009
Short Takes
Our own G.C. Waldrep gets a unique review from Rumpus. “And God said, ‘Let there be…Ben-Day dots’ — Genesis gets graphic. Brush up on your Prufrock! Just days after his […]
September 7, 2009
Short Takes
Robert Creely in the outfield. Thinking about what work is on labor day. Pyrocumulus clouds! I boiled and bloomed lonely, as a cloud…(via Arts and Letters Daily) Want to go […]