With My Body I Thee Worship
By Culture Issue 107
Glück’s novel was a particularly poignant book to read this spring, when I found myself abruptly unable to touch another person, go to Mass, or receive the Eucharist. Lent rolled on without any anticipation of a liberatory Easter; then it was Easter, and I was still alone.
Read MoreAn Aesthetic of Lack, or Notes on Camps
By Culture Issue 107
Paschal could not leave his beloved mother’s head bare. How could he? For he knew that nature gapes with lack. He knew that we’re meant to be hooked up to something else, as if our skulls were plugs. Or to put it another way: he knew that all of us are amputees from moment we’re born.
Read MoreSummer of the Statue Storm
By Culture Issue 106
The monument is essentially didactic: look on my works, ye mighty. But the ruin, the legless trunk, is often the real lesson, on the passing of time and the erosion of reputation.
Read MoreA Place for All People
By Culture Issue 105
It’s easy to imagine Day marching alongside those now promoting racial equality, the dignified treatment of immigrants, workers’ rights, pacifism, and income equity.
Read MoreA Shocking December Red
By Culture Issue 105
I want to go back to Manderley and drag myself up the stairs at midnight. See myself. Pull my baby up through the water from the land of the dead.
Read MoreA Place for All People
By Culture Issue 105
It’s easy to imagine Day marching alongside those now promoting racial equality, the dignified treatment of immigrants, workers’ rights, pacifism, and income equity.
Read MoreGratuity: Who Gets Paid When Art Is Free
By Culture Issue 104
Music is what I call an anti-commodity—a thing that isn’t exhausted when used or given away but gets larger and more valuable, like the fish and loaves in the gospel. In that way, a song is like love or friendship or trust, those other anti-commodities that increase with the giving.
Read MoreExposure
By Culture Issue 104
If I’m to be serious about my music, or any art, I shouldn’t put it toward anything as problematic as God, but toward ambition, achievement: the only reliable gods.
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