Brando, My Solitude – Arno Bertina

Brando, My Solitude – Arno Bertina

The narrator tries to ensnare his grandfather in prose.

Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner

Art is about play and about transcendent meanings, not reducible to politics.

Richard Dawkins and the Ascent of Madness

Richard Dawkins and the Ascent of Madness

Wander too far down the path of rationalist dogma and it’ll be no surprise if you end up like Richard Dawkins, sunning his genitals in a world that no longer makes any sense.

Features

Sometimes We Live No Particular Way But Our Own: The Grateful Dead and Epicureanism

Sometimes We Live No Particular Way But Our Own: The Grateful Dead and Epicureanism

If the Grateful Dead will always be stuck somewhere between band and cult, Epicureanism itself has been stuck between cult and philosophy since it was founded around 300 BCE.

Writing Decline: Detroit City in Print

Writing Decline: Detroit City in Print

Four books attempt to describe the Detroit of past and present: two good, one bad, one of such inconsequence its inclusion here is only justified as an act of collation.

No Master

No Master

Anderson’s movies promote a particular fallacy: they encourage us to accept the symbol for the reality.

Interviews

Ramona Ausubel

Ramona Ausubel

There’s something about language that to me is so special, and I feel like it goes right past all my logical brain workings. It feels like a drug.

Pathos: Sam Lipsyte

Pathos: Sam Lipsyte

The fiction writer, at least, creates the lie to contain the truth.

Lisa Cohen

Lisa Cohen

Every biography is a failure in some way. It’s laced with all kinds of opacities, instabilities.

Blog

Best of “God Hates Us All”

Best of “God Hates Us All”

A tribute to Slayer's "God Hates Us All" after the untimely death of Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman.

First Class on a Sinking Ship

First Class on a Sinking Ship

Eric Hobsbawm, beloved and recently deceased, was the rare type of Marxist who receives a complimentary obituary from The Economist.

20 4 420: 2013 Edition

20 4 420: 2013 Edition

20 heady songs! Featuring: Morphine! Rain Parade! Follakzoid! Yes! Cave! And many others!

Reviews

The Dream of Doctor Bantam – Jeanne Thornton

The Dream of Doctor Bantam – Jeanne Thornton

Then I realized the problem: the cult wasn’t scary enough.

Middle Men – Jim Gavin

Middle Men – Jim Gavin

But what, exactly, is man in the middle between?

Red Doc> – Anne Carson

Red Doc> – Anne Carson

I would like to suggest that Anne Carson’s Red Doc> is a clock, a clock that takes the measure of its readers and their world by entrancing them with anachronism and myth.