Alexander Chee has a delightful essay in the Morning News about the way we view our personal libraries and what happens to our books when we attempt to combine our bookshelves with our partners.
Quotes
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Revisiting Frida Kahlo’s Style and Cult of Personality
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the traumatic trolley accident that hospitalized artist Frida Kahlo and inspired, perhaps cruelly, her artistic path. Despite her global popularity, there’s still more to learn about this extraordinary artist. For five journalists, exploring the textiles of Frida Kahlo’s homeland gives her rich legacy a new texture.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How Patty Hearst Went From Kidnapping Victim to Armed Guerrilla
On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst was kidnapped from her Berkeley, CA apartment by members of an urban guerrilla group called the Symbionese Liberation Army. Two months after she was abducted Hearst— the granddaughter of the real life “Citizen Kane,” publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst—had joined the SLA, adopted the the name “Tania” as her […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Uncategorized
In Order to Grieve, Helen Macdonald Got a Hawk and Practiced Disappearing
Hawks aren’t social animals like dogs or horses; they understand neither coercion nor punishment. The only way to tame them is through positive reinforcement with gifts of food. You want the hawk to eat the food you hold – it’s the first step in reclaiming her that will end with you being hunting partners. But […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
What It Means for an Object to Be ‘Context Free’
In a recent piece for Vice, Jules Suzdaltsev discussed the ubiquity of white plastic chairs and what that ubiquity means for world culture amidst rapid globalization. Below is a brief excerpt about from the piece: But unlike similar global objects like lighters, televisions, paper clips, cigarettes, transistor radios, and AK-47s, these chairs are “context free.” MIT’s Director of Civic Media […]
Posted inFiction, Nonfiction, Quotes
Joan Didion Dismissed ‘Franny and Zooey’ as a Self-Help Book ‘for Sarah Lawrence Girls’
In 1961, Joan Didion reviewed J.D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey for The National Review.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Toni Morrison on Why Writers Have Such a Hard Time Writing About Sex
Sex is difficult to write about because it’s just not sexy enough. The only way to write about it is not to write much. Let the reader bring his own sexuality into the text. A writer I usually admire has written about sex in the most off-putting way. There is just too much information. If you start saying “the curve of . . .” you soon sound like a gynecologist.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
How the NFL Is Like a Blockbuster Movie Franchise
The industry term for or a blockbuster movie franchise is a “tentpole”—it’s the asset that holds the whole operation up. At the height of mass culture, in the second half of the 20th century, it was enough to be on television to command an audience in the tens of millions. But as channels multiplied, the difference between […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Oregon’s Somewhat Secret, Racist Roots
Oregon’s natural beauty belies a nasty history. Slavery was never ratified, but the state made a point to exclude anyone who was Black or multiracial from living, working or owning property in its constitution. Matt Novak explains at Gizmodo…
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Wild Country: Remembering Edward Abbey
The author and environmental activist Edward Abbey, who passed away in 1989, would have been 88 today. Abbey—who Larry McMurtry dubbed “the Thoreau of the American West”—was known for his searing love of wilderness, particularly the deserts of the Southwest, and his progressive views. An excerpt from Desert Solitaire, his most famous non-fiction work, can be […]