• Politics/Culture

    Infected by Trump Derangement Syndrome

    If only we would all just get off his back and let him govern, we are told. The poor man is besieged on every side, the jackals of the press circling and sniping, relentless in their bare-teethed aggression. Behind them, 68 million aggrieved and unyielding Clinton voters, unwilling to accept the verdict of the electoral college, criticizing his every breath and utterance. Unfair and unprecedented, we are told, the president himself shaping the narrative of his terrible victimization. This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2017 Poor…

  • Poetry

    On Losing Stuff. And Loss. And Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art.”

    How much time might you have spent in the past, oh, month, looking for items you misplaced? The keys, the glasses, the purse, the shirt, the notes, the credit card you removed from the wallet to make a purchase, online or in the store, suddenly gone. (Lucky for you if the checker or bagger chased you out to the parking lot, smiling, bless their heart, your card held aloft in their hands in the kindest possible reproach.) With your misplacements at home, you begin flipping over the dish towels, the junk mail, the pillows and post-its and papers and gadgets. Minutes…

  • Painting & Sculpture - Visual Arts

    Artist of Repose: Sculptor Tinka Jordy’s Profound Humanist Vision

    Sculpture, like all other art forms, has always ridden along on historical waves of style and sensibility. It both joins in with and helps to direct the prevailing currents unique to any given era. Not much cottoning to the hottest new trends in painting, sculpture, literature, music or film? Just give it 20 minutes and, as in springtime, the clouds will probably shift again and the light may manifest in ways more to your liking. But as we look through the long-running project of humanity trying, with a considerable assist from its artists, to define itself within and against the world,…