The Answer to the Riddle Is Me
When my parents walked into my room at the asylum, some motor in my brain spun and sparked a blue arc of electricity between two exiled neurons in my… More
Chester Phillips: Heroes and Consequences
I imagine Andy Williamson standing on the welcome mat of my family’s house at 614 Ravenwood Drive. I see him in the moment before his hand touches the door,… More
Listen to This
I envy jazz people who speak simply of “the music.” Some jazz aficionados also call their art “America’s classical music,” and I propose a trade: they can have “classical,”… More
The Emperor of All Maladies
On the morning of May 19, 2004, Carla Reed, a thirty-year-old kindergarten teacher from Ipswich, Massachusetts, a mother of three young children, woke up in bed with a headache. More
Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward
Samuel Morris Steward was born July 23, 1909, in Woodsfield, the seat of Monroe County in southeastern Ohio, a county bordering on Appalachia, and in many ways just as… More
Disenchantment in the Cowshed
Ji Xianlin’s 1998 memoir recounts the painful and deeply disenchanting period he spent in the “cowshed,” an improvised prison on the Peking University campus for intellectuals labeled as “class… More
Malcolm C. Lyons with Ursula Lyons: Mesmeric Force
In real terms throughout the Arab world, the reciters of such tales were concerned not with life but livelihood, for their audiences had to he encouraged to return, night… More
What Is Left Unwritten
Texts and images of millennia past affect us without our notice all the time. Their cultural residue is the foundation upon which we stand, yet we often fail to… More
Memories of the Cowshed
We numbered more than a hundred, but not one of us dared breach the unwritten rule against holding our heads up, thereby inviting a well-aimed kick or heavy blow… More
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