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Book Review: Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta
Stone Arabia has been billed as a rock-and-roll novel, but that’s only half of the story. Sure, there is music of the rock genre, but memory and truth make up the backbone of Dana Spiotta’s third novel. Like Spiotta’s other works, Stone Arabia has an interesting premise: the narrator’s brother Nik Worth is the author ...
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The Sketchbook Project
There is a notion that art is created by trained professionals and displayed in neat corridors with golden frames for the appreciation of upper class museum patrons. As an individual with a creative side and only time for casual glancing, I find this conception of art both hampering and isolating; and frankly I don’t want ...
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The Social Art of Justice
Humans enter this world stark naked, vulnerable, shrieking and wailing. The world outside of the womb is frightening. Senses overwhelm the newborn babe. Could children know that the world into which they have entered is pregnant with a plenitude of injustices? With time, the growing child’s senses will be honed. Combined with the abstract concepts ...
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Let’s Wear Hats and Gloves Again
Did you ever have that moment during the day where you look up into a mirror you’re passing and realize you look like you think you’re en route to a MadMen extras casting? No? That never happens to you? That happens to me at least twice a week. One good look at me and most ...
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Happenings, Week of 10/23/11
Ongoing Events Going Home – Sculpture and prints by RISD graduate Frank Poor; Going Home is an examination of Poor’s old Georgia stomping grounds, replicating rural architecture in hyper-real photography; exhibit runs through October 30, 2011; see museum website for hours and admissions; Newport Art Museum (76 Bellvue Ave., Newport, RI) Claybourne Park – Trinity Repertory Company presents Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize winning ...
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Rise Up: Art After Disaster
In Narratives and Landscapes, Barry Lopez suggests that our interior landscapes are ordered according to our exterior landscapes – in essence who we are is influenced, if not completely shaped, by our geographical and cultural surroundings. We often see this idea in action when natural disasters strike. We have the unfortunate opportunity to witness how ...
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Book vs. Film – Let the Right One In
I came to own this book through something of a happy accident. I had ordered a copy online for a birthday gift, but it hadn’t arrived in time. In order to get my friend’s gift to her, I bought a copy at the bookstore and kept the one that was in the mail. I was ...
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Murder Songs: The Knife
When we find ourselves in a dark place, it is important to have an appropriate soundtrack. Murder songs. The exploration of music inspired by violations of the 6th commandment. Today I’ll talk about one of the oldest and most successful of weapons known – the Knife. Originally crafted over 2 millions years ago out of ...
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Book Review: Stoner by John Williams
If hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way, they could learn a few things from William Stoner. The protagonist of John Williams’ novel Stoner enters the University of Missouri in 1910 and dies in 1956 after decades there as an assistant professor. We learn this in the first few lines: the rest of ...
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Happenings, Week of 10/16/11
Ongoing Events Going Home – Sculpture and prints by RISD graduate Frank Poor; Going Home is an examination of Poor’s old Georgia stomping grounds, replicating rural architecture in hyper-real photography; exhibit runs through October 30, 2011; see museum website for hours and admissions; Newport Art Museum (76 Bellvue Ave., Newport, RI) Claybourne Park – Trinity Repertory Company presents Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize ...
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The Occupy Movement: Democracy of the Disenfranchised
Democracy is a simple, convoluted, elegantly messy, greatly loathed and much beloved thing. The word means rule by the many. If you’ve ever found it impossible to come to any semblance of a decision with a very few friends, you can understand how decision-making amongst the many would present, shall we say, difficulties. Those of ...
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Reading is So Gay: A Reading List for National Coming Out Day
Each year, Publishing Triangle, the association for gay and lesbian publishing industry insiders, revises their list of the top 100 LGBT novels; an additional list of novels are chosen in a readers’ choice poll, with 88 chosen in the 2009 poll. The novels chosen by Publishing Triangle are often the standard bearers for LGBT writers and ...