Signs and Symbols
By Essay Issue 114
It had been four months since we’d run out of money. Somehow, we were still afloat.
Read MoreThe Uncontained Life
By Culture Issue 110
It’s as though the movie represents an alternate life for any of us. Take away a job. Take away a spouse. Take away an able body. Take away good mental health. How many of us could maintain our current lifestyles for long before we’d feel the crunch, the walls closing in?
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 MoreThe Ritz
By Poetry Issue 87
No you’re not a saint because you spare the maid a stubborn skid mark by swiping the bowl clean with an oven-mitt- sized toilet-paper wad during the one mid-flush moment between water’s vanishing and return before you step under the turbo multi-jet gleaming steaming solid-brass showerhead so brilliantly designed to make you feel exactly as…
Read MoreMeans of Participation
By Essay Issue 80
The Road Behind Us Image’s Founding Generation When Image was founded in 1989, the cultural landscape looked different than it does today. Religious writers and artists felt cold-shouldered in the public square and often ill at ease within the church. The need for a journal that demonstrated the continuing vitality of contemporary art informed by…
Read MoreMan Is But an Ass
By Essay Issue 84
WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, I had two dreams. One of those dreams was to be a preacher. I wanted to preach because I loved public speaking, and because I loved memorization, and also because I grew up in the Church of Christ, which taught that baptism was the only way to get into heaven, but…
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