Last week, I saw Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s solo show at The New Museum, in New York. Yiadom-Boakye is a youngish portraitist, much-talked about. Some of the chatter is generated by greatly exaggerated reports of the death of portraiture, or figurative painting more broadly; some because ……
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Yesterday morning, I opened the door to let the dog in after a long night of hard rains. The air was hot, muggy, already at 7. The contrast felt apocalyptic, but everything does these days: it’s just my usual adjective. How ……
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I finished listening through S-Town yesterday, and want very badly to discuss it with someone. But since my husband couldn’t get past the tragic death in the second episode, which had him crying while pushing a shopping cart around Whole Foods, I ……
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The cat is climbing the screen door. It is night and when I let her in, I find the air newly warm. April. I am standing in the kitchen, eating a piece of toast because it has been a busy evening, as ……
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Last month, the inimitable Julianna Baggott got in touch with this message: “I’ve been trying to figure out a way to create something that pushes people to think about their No-Trump Vote with real purpose. I was feeling like my ……
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There’s a lot of page space right now devoted to Donald Trump’s false claims in the history of the ‘birther controversy’—Trump has said numerous times that Hillary Clinton’s campaign started the rumour that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the US, ……
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It was in many ways strange to go to Sri Lanka six years after the brutal conclusion to its 26-year civil war. I went with a small freight of questions and expectations, culled from a lifetime of observing the place ……
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I saw the movie Inside Out with my kids months ago and meant to write something about how hard and great it was to see such an accurate depiction of depression, made so lucid and visual. Many people think that to ……
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I’ve just returned from three lovely events in the Toronto area, including visits with large undergrad classes at York and McMaster who have honored me by reading my book—closely. One of the most charming aspects of these visits was how ……
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I am working on my first book-length translation, from Portuguese, the only language I have attempted with any real seriousness to translate. I had been away from Brazil for years, and wanted a way to keep up my language skills. What ……
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