Jackson Arn at Art in America: The first thing I noticed about Le Cirque when I saw it at Pace was its clumsiness. The sculpture is comically, endearingly big: thirteen feet tall and almost a hundred feet in circumference, with elephant legs and zebra stripes like scribbles blown … | Continue reading
Dexter Filkins at The New Yorker: In the final days of the Second World War, a train loaded with relics of the collapsing Third Reich was speeding toward the Czech border when American pilots, flying P-47 fighters, spotted it and opened fire. The train ground to a halt in a fores … | Continue reading
Bearhug Griffin calls to come and kiss him goodnight I yell ok. Finish something I’m doing, then something else, walk slowly round the corner to my son’s room. He is standing arms outstretched waiting for a bearhug. Grinning. Why do I give my emotion an animal’s name, give it tha … | Continue reading
Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the most reliable writer of all in the history of 3QD: Akim Reinhardt. Starting at the end of 2010, Akim has written his excellent column at 3QD every fourth week for just over ten years now. He has never, ever mi … | Continue reading
by Akim Reinhardt Every Democrat, and many independent voters, breathed an enormous sigh of relief when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the November election. Now they are all nervously counting down the days (16) until the last of Trump’s frivolous lawsuits is dismissed, his … | Continue reading
by Jeroen Bouterse Three times have we started doing philosophy, and three times has the enterprise come to a somewhat embarrassing end, being supplanted by other activities while failing anyway to deliver whatever goods it had promised. Each of those three times corresponds to a … | Continue reading
Uroboros new year, a day of ends and beginnings, two extremes of a rope, sunup-sundown, the moment we split our sign for infinity (that lazy 8 napping on its side as life goes on), the day we take a short breath in belief that its undulant line can really be cut and resumed witho … | Continue reading
by Usha Alexander [This is the seventh in a series of essays, On Climate Truth and Fiction, in which I raise questions about environmental distress, the human experience, and storytelling. The previous part is here.] “Our plan B has always been grounded in our beliefs around the … | Continue reading
Lorna Simpson. Unanswerable (detail) 2018. Found photograph, and collage on paper. More here, here, and here. | Continue reading
by Dave Maier If one enters the name “Ellen Page” into the search box at en.wikipedia.org, it redirects to an entry entitled “Elliot Page” (and informs you that it has done this). This is because on December 1, 2020, as the entry itself tells us in the section marked “Personal li … | Continue reading
by Rafaël Newman Arma virusque cano: Sing, O Muse, through me, the wandering Of something lowly, microscopic, But found at both Poles, and each Tropic. An opportunist virus, which Is banished by mere soap (or bleach), And yet has billions, masked, in arma, Awaiting backup from Bi … | Continue reading
by Sarah Firisen This Christmas, I stayed in a Marriott in the town where my kids live. Like most people, my business and personal travel has mostly ground to a halt in the last 9 months. So I was pleasantly surprised by the check-in experience the hotel provided me to allow for … | Continue reading
by Philip Graham In the early months of 1966, whenever a familiar look of boredom settled in my mother’s eyes at the thought of cooking, I’d suggest, “Why don’t we go out for pizza?” She always agreed. Our pizzeria of choice was conveniently located on a one-block strip mall less … | Continue reading
Justin E. H. Smith in his Substack Newsletter: Although the literary theorist and anthropologist René Girard has many Silicon Valley disciples, surely the most notable of them is the German-born venture capitalist and founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel. A student of Girard’s while at … | Continue reading
Radek Vana in Inquiries: We are never alone. And by this statement, I do not intend to argue for existence of some supernatural entities, aliens or God. We are never alone because we all share our bodies with trillions of symbiotic microorganisms that perform various physiologica … | Continue reading
Fran Quigley in Jacobin: When we speak to our sisters and brothers living in poverty in the United States, the confessional trope that describes so many dysfunctional relationships should be our opening line. “Poverty is a choice that the fortunate collectively make,” social work … | Continue reading
“As the World Turns” is not just the title of an old TV soap, but a thing that happens year by year.” — Sean O’Saical Letter from My Ancestors We wouldn’t write this, wouldn’t even think of it. We are working people without time on our hands. In the old country, we milk cows or d … | Continue reading
Joanna Blythman in The Guardian: The investigative journalist Gary Taubes is known for his painstakingly researched and withering demolitions of the “eat less, move more” diet orthodoxy, but his latest book is personal. The Case for Keto is aimed at “those of us who fatten easily … | Continue reading
Edward Sorel in The New York Times: Both grew up in the Midwest, both wrote novels that skewered the patriarchal, conformist towns where they were raised, and both shared the distinction of having churchmen condemn their books as “immoral.” They should have been friends, but by 1 … | Continue reading
Priya Satia in Aeon: After the Second World War, historians asked us to shift our focus from great men to the actions and experiences of ordinary people, to culture rather than institutions. This methodological shift to ‘history from below’ was political, supporting a democratic … | Continue reading
Peter Gordon in The New Statesman: Marxism has had a long and troubled relationship with religion. In 1843 the young Karl Marx wrote in a critical essay on German philosophy that religion is “the opium of the people”, a phrase that would eventually harden into official atheism fo … | Continue reading
Mahmood Mamdani in Lapham’s Quarterly: In the early period of American colonization, there was no reference to a place called Indian country. That is because every place was Indian country. Settlers in Maine rented land from Indians. In the Dutch and English colonies, settlers pu … | Continue reading
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Christopher Mackin and Richard May in The New Republic: With vaccinations underway and the Biden administration about to assume power, attention will soon return to an assessment of the true damage that Covid-19 has wreaked on the American economy. At this moment, it’s important … | Continue reading
Jennifer Szalai at the New York Times: On the face of it, “Feline Philosophy” would seem like a departure for Gray — a playful exploration of what cats might have to teach humans in our never-ending quest to understand ourselves. But the book, in true Gray fashion, suggests that … | Continue reading
Daniel Grossman at The Washington Post: Though wood still plays an important role in the construction of our homes — think two-by-four stud supports and plywood in walls, flooring and roofing — our eye most often falls on exteriors covered in synthetic materials like vinyl siding … | Continue reading
Kendall Little in The New York Times: 2020 was, well, tumultuous to say the least. The COVID-19 pandemic and recession caused devastating long-term unemployment and income losses for many, historic low interest rates for borrowers, and stock market highs for investors. Since Next … | Continue reading
Jenny Odell in The Paris Review: “The Over-Soul” is my favorite essay, but Emerson is better known for “Self Reliance,” that famous paean to individualism. This is the one where Emerson declares that “[w]hoso would be a man must be nonconformist,” and disdains society as “a join- … | Continue reading
Ed Yong in The Atlantic: The coronavirus pandemic ignited at the end of 2019 and blazed across 2020. Many countries repeatedly contained it. The United States did not. At least 19 million Americans have been infected. At least 326,000 have died. The first two surges, in the spri … | Continue reading
Forester McClatchey in the Washington Examiner: The Complete Works of Alberto Caeiro, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Patricio Ferrari, presents the work of a complicated man. Caeiro was born in Lisbon in 1889, but he spent most of his life in the countryside. He received a … | Continue reading
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Marc Daalder in Newsroom: Michael Baker figures he was the first public health expert in the world to talk about eliminating Covid-19, though he’s not sure why. “Using that terminology which is straight from the infectious disease 101, it’s a really standard term,” he tells Newsr … | Continue reading
Fred Bahnson at Harper’s Magazine: Since Rohr founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in 1987, his aim has been to revive the Christian contemplative tradition. For a growing number of Christendom’s defectors, his teachings have provided a bridge, even a destination. Thro … | Continue reading
Vinson Cunningham at The New Yorker: Since 2011, a monument to Martin Luther King, Jr., has sat across the water from the Jefferson Memorial, almost engaging it in a staring contest. The result is a rich spatial symbolism: two ways of seeing Christ duking it out. King saw Jesus i … | Continue reading
Robert Reich in The Guardian: Most of the 74,222,957 Americans who voted to re-elect Donald Trump – 46.8%of the votes cast in the 2020 presidential election – don’t hold Trump accountable for what he’s done to America. Their acceptance of Trump’s behavior will be his vilest legac … | Continue reading
Gary Saul Morson in The New Criterion: On December 22, 1849, a group of political radicals were taken from their prison cells in Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Fortress, where they had been interrogated for eight months. Led to the Semenovsky Square, they heard a sentence of death b … | Continue reading
Peter Singer and Agata Sagan in Project Syndicate: Many people make New Year’s resolutions. The most common ones, at least in the United States, are to exercise more, eat healthier, save money, lose weight, or reduce stress. Some may resolve to be better to a particular person – … | Continue reading
Zia Ahmed in the Washington Post: Our family had been fortunate. Ali was too young for school. Anna’s job allowed her to telework during the pandemic. Unlike many parents, we didn’t have to worry about money or child care. Our little boy adapted well to social isolation. He read, … | Continue reading
Justin Taylor at Bookforum: Pancake’s depictions of the culture and geography of Appalachia and the Trans-Allegheny were all but unprecedented. The hills and hollows of West Virginia were largely neglected in American literature, even the intensely regionalist literatures of the … | Continue reading
Ed Simon at The Millions: Both The Divine Comedy and Piers Plowman express verities accessed by the mind in repose; Langland’s poem, for not beginning in a dark wood but rather in a sunny field, embodies mystical apprehensions as surely as does Dante. A key difference is that Lan … | Continue reading