Last night at Manhattan’s Center for Fiction, Victor LaValle read from his latest novel The Devil in Silver, published by Spiegel & Grau. Mr. LaValle wrote his novel at the George Washington Bridge Port Authority’s Dunkin Donuts where he observed … Continued
Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale. — Catullus We’ve been writing about loss for millennia, and about the loss of brothers in particular for almost as long. Catullus wrote his famous 101st poem, ending with the … Continued
Below, a twenty-two-year-old Federico García Lorca writes a twenty-five-year-old Adriano del Valle, describing plans for future work. TO ADRIANO DEL VALLE September 19, 1920 My dear friend Adriano: I’m sure I must have acquired a terrible reputation as a bad … Continued
This past weekend marked the annual Small Press Expo (SPX), one of the country’s premier independent comics conventions. Over 3000 people attended the event in Rockville, Maryland. This year’s line up of guests included Gilbert and Jamie Hernandez, Adrian Tomine, … Continued
Poetry is always batting back and forth the issue of sincerity. Is it acceptable for a poem to be direct with what it’s saying? Personally, I want to read poems that have a true emotional entity behind them, but … Continued
Albert Camus maintained a lifelong, intimate, and candid correspondence with French philosopher Jean Grenier. Camus had been Grenier’s student at the University of Algiers, and would dedicate his first book to Grenier. TO JEAN GRENIER September 18,1951, Paris Dear … Continued
Since reKiosk went live three weeks ago, Aziz and Darya Isham, the brother-sister team behind the site, have been at the center of a whirlwind of attention. reKiosk is a network of digital storefronts (or “kiosks”) where anyone can sell … Continued
In 1831, J.S. Mill introduced Thomas Carlyle to a young New Englander—then traveling abroad in London—by the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Jane Carlyle would refer to this first encounter with Emerson as “the visit of an angel”, while Thomas … Continued
In its traditional formulation, the metaphor of the bird cage is pretty banal: we can see out and they can see in—but we’re trapped…
Remember when new inventions displayed a charming disregard for user experience? Check out this bicycle. It’s called a velocipede, and Nicéphore Niépce, its inventor, could not have cared less if you fell off. Only recently have we been so coddled by things like … Continued
