A newspaper journalist’s attempt to correct the record.
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Syracuse Transcript
THE MAN IN THE SHELL (OR CASE, DEPENDING ON WHICH TRANSLATION YOU READ, BUT IT IS KIND OF INTERESTING HOW “SHELL” AND “CASE” MEAN ROUGHLY THE SAME THING IN RUSSIAN, APPARENTLY) So here are three frame stories, linked by various recurring characters. The first one opens with two men, one inside the barn, one outside; […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes
Educating the Imagination: Kenneth Koch on Poetry
I was brought up in Cincinnati, Ohio. My parents were very nice. The first time I wrote a poem, my mother gave me a big kiss and said, “I love you.” The whole idea of writing poetry had a lot to do with escaping, escaping from the bourgeois society of Cincinnati, Ohio, escaping from any […]
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
Dancing Naked in Public
A conversation on art with critic Jerry Saltz.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
In 1971, the People Didn’t Just March on Washington — They Shut It Down
The most influential large-scale political action of the ’60s was actually in 1971, and you’ve never heard of it. It was called the Mayday action, and it provides invaluable lessons for today.
Posted inNonfiction
Revisiting the Ghosts of Attica
A wrenching new book recounts the bloodiest prison battle in our history.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
Mark Haddon: ‘Ultimately, There Is No Narrative Without Death’
An conversation with the author about his dark new short story collection, The Pier Falls.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Spelling Skills and the Meaning of the American Dream
In 1931, the historian James Truslow Adams defined the American Dream as “a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable.” His book, The Epic of America, may have popularized the term, but the dream dates back at least to […]
Posted inNonfiction
The Day My Brother Took a Life and Changed Mine Forever
I grew up idolizing my brother. Then he killed a man.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why Our Ignorance Makes Us Overestimate How Much We Know
Impostor syndrome has been covered extensively in recent years. Its inverse, known as the Dunning-Kruger effect, is at least as pervasive: our innate tendency to confidently claim expertise in topics we know very little about, sometimes to embarrassing (if not tragic) results. Writing for Pacific Standard, David Dunning, who led the first studies of this […]
