Issue 19 | May-June 2012
Stuart Blazer’s Ruffled Surf
That silo you never saw until today was yours the day you were born. –Richard Hugo Why don’t you make a mistake and do something right. –Sun Ra Man was…
Alice Neel: a Radical Portrait
Alice Neel was a handful. She was a visual artist, a proto-feminist, a Thirties radical, and a Sixties icon. She was the mother of four children, an abused woman, and…
Mishandling the Truth
I’m going to review John D’Agata’s new book, Lifespan of a Fact, even though I haven’t read it. But don’t worry. I read D’Agata’s two previous books, Halls of Fame…
Eyebrows, Cigarettes, Etcetera
In Ben Lerner’s debut novel, someone is always lighting a cigarette. Awkward social situation? Time for a smoke. Waiting for a table? Cigarette, please. Terrorist attacks on Madrid’s commuter trains?…
The Forty Days (and 80 Years) of Musa Dagh
Born in Prague in 1890, Franz Werfel lived a peripatetic life as a writer and traveler. He was employed as a teacher in Leipzig and then a soldier in what…