Posts Tagged ‘society and culture’
A Good Fight: Deux Jours, Une Nuit (Two Days, One Night)
October 26, 2015
If a pair of writer/directors exists that can rival Joel and Ethan Coen for a body of work with profound depictions of humanity, it is another set of brothers. The films of the Dardennes, Jean-Pierre and Luc, have consistently been among the best of modern offerings and were a main feature in an essay I…
Read MoreThe Beast Without
October 20, 2015
“Isaac’s being a jerk,” my seven year-old, Isaiah, says about his older brother. They have been sledding over new-fallen snow. “Why do you say that?” “Because he keeps knocking me off my sled.” “Why do you think he does that?” I ask. I’ve been trying to help my children consider how sometimes they incite one another. “Because…
Read MoreTale of the Lucky and the Star-Crossed
October 6, 2015
They say that luck is where hard work meets opportunity. But often the ones who say that are those who are the greatest beneficiaries of luck. It seems a way by which the fortunate can reclaim a portion of the credit for the things that have befallen them: “Yes, X happened, and it was indeed…
Read MoreWonder Woman, Flying, Part 2: Beauty and Sacrament
October 2, 2015
Continued from yesterday. In this scene from Batman’s first meeting with Wonder Woman in Trinity, you can feel the writer Matt Wagner’s personality trumping the artist; though it doesn’t really add much to the narrative, Wagner can’t help but let Bats make a crack about her costume. Superheroines’ costumes are perpetually controversial, it seems (perhaps…
Read MoreNot Your Mother’s Book Tour
September 16, 2015
In my world, a typical book signing involves sitting behind a small publisher’s table at the annual AWP Conference book fair. Along with dozens of other poets throughout the day, I peer at passersby like a shelter dog whose time has run out. If I’m lucky, someone might stop to say hello, taking a complimentary…
Read MoreA Lottery for Barbarians
September 10, 2015
From time to time in my unorthodox career, I’ve found myself teaching a class—be it in ethics or literature or law—which includes a reading of Shirley Jackson’s horror story, The Lottery, first introduced in eighth grade English (or it was back in the day) and having the singular distinction of being the one story most…
Read MoreGod Has Got to Be Real
July 20, 2015
God became man, so that man might become God. —St. Athanasius What you find-ah / What you feel now / What you know-a / To be real —Cheryl Lynn God is at home. It is we who have gone out for a walk. —Meister Eckhart How do you talk about God to people who…
Read MoreThe Art of the Authentic: Bill Baer’s Times Square
June 22, 2015
The great director’s question in the film essay—a technique quite innovative for its time—was the old conundrum of what is real and what is not, and what makes something art as opposed to imitation.
Read MoreWanted: God—Dead or Alive?
June 17, 2015
None of us chooses a religion because of its dogma.
Read MoreBefore the Fall of Baseball
June 16, 2015
Much as the Greeks lived in close proximity to their gods, who dwelled on Mt. Olympus, my family lived in Odessa, Missouri, only a half-hour’s drive from Kansas City, where the Royals loomed larger than life for me.
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