Blog
I never deny that I am a contemporary woman
One day, several months ago, I approached the clear glass door to my office building during a rainy day with a coffee in my right hand and an umbrella in my left hand—purse and work tote slung over my left shoulder. As I stepped up to the door, a man whom had just entered ahead of me was closing the door behind me, looking straight at me, closing, intentionally, the door I needed to walk through to get to work, seeing me the whole time. Are you understanding this situation? It was at that moment I was sure I heard chivalry...
read moreBook Review: Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
Alexis M. Smith’s short novel Glaciers is a Tin House New Voice, hailed by the press as “delicate,” “haunting,” and “glinting.” I agree that the debut is, all in all, a very pretty piece of work. The prose is wistful yet crystal-cut in a way that makes the internal monologues and thoughts sparkle, and the vivid memories flesh out the story of one day in the life. Yet in the end I was left with the same feeling Isabel had after first finding the mysterious postcard of Amsterdam: I wish more had been said. The postcard in...
read moreChild’s Own Studio
When I was a child my favorite toy was a raggedy, stuffed rabbit. He wore something like a harlequin’s costume; though its stripes were so faded it more resembled a white jumpsuit. He went everywhere with me and, as a consequence, posed in nearly every family photo with my younger self. At one point my uncle’s puppy tore him to shreds (he also gnawed the fingers off of my sister’s doll), and my parents promptly replaced him with a clone. He was by no means a unique stuffed animal. In fact, I’ve heard tales of a few “Bun-Buns” and...
read moreBook Review: Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory
Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day is probably best read not during either of those times, but instead during the twilight hour when you might look up from a particular fantastic story and forget whether the day is ending or just beginning. Ben Loory’s stories are just a few pages each, and some are barely a paragraph in length. Some are fables, some are fairy tale, some are fantasy and some I wouldn’t put in any of those categories. After reading another story, each as quirky as the last, I thought of myself trying to...
read moreLittle Free Libraries
I go to the Boston Public Library to do work because it is quiet, cavernous, and filled with books that simultaneously help me and distract me. It’s here that I will occasionally sign out a book to read for pleasure, though mostly I use my card to get texts I need for class. I go to the Emerson College library because it’s convenient, opened later (if only by a few hours), and filled with people who will undoubtedly interrupt the work I don’t want to be doing. It’s here that I check out movies, reference books, and again, books I need...
read moreJust One Bird Baked in This Pie
My boyfriend bought me a pie bird. Yes, you read right. A few weeks ago when we were surveying things down in the wondrous Italian Market in South Philly, my boyfriend bought me a pie bird. To own a pie bird is a dream I have had for at least a year. I know: you’re feeling overwhelming jealousy right now. Well, maybe it’s more like overwhelming confusion. What the heck is a pie bird, right? Why am I such a strange person—strange bird, if you will? Now, I know I’m interested in slightly unusual items. I spend long...
read moreBook Review: The Third Reich by Roberto Bolaño
Click here to listen to an clip of the audiobook for The Third Reich, graciously provided to Side B Magazine by MacMillan Audio! — Since Roberto Bolaño’s death in 2003, a number of his books have been published posthumously and translated into English by either Chris Andrews or Natasha Wimmer. As readers we’ve come to expect certain things in a Bolaño novel: a character who is a writer, and commentary on the act of writing; a detached narrator who encounters deranged characters, or a befuddled main character; mysteries; a...
read moreRandom Acts of Kindness
I saw Pay It Forward when I was too young to cope with the death (spoiler alert) of the main character, Trevor, but the general concept was something my fifth grade self, having never been exposed to the idea, appreciated. It, the “do something nice for someone and they’ll do something nice for someone else” concept, drifted to the back of my mind for several years as I fumbled through puberty and the awkward middle school years which somehow seeped into what were supposed to be the “best years of my life”/high school years. It...
read moreAnd How Do You Take Your Bubbly?
Picture it: The Fitzgeralds (Zelda and Scott, if you are more familiar) are at a party in Paris circa 1924, and they are handed champagne. You and I, we go to a classy restaurant for a celebration—oh congratulations, I hope you did something absolutely fabulous to get us here, oh I just know you did, darling—and order champagne. They probably don’t come in the same vessel of a glass do they? Are you picturing it? Are you seeing the difference? I know you are. You are seeing us in early 2012 with champagne flutes; you’re...
read moreInterview: Screenwriter Thomas Humphreys
When most children grow up and enter into the family line of business, rarely is that business probably the film business. This, however, is the case for 28-year-old Welsh screenwriter Thomas Humphreys. Humphreys’ father works in film and TV, including the beloved and long-running “Doctor Who.” Humphreys’ brother, Michael, also went into the same field, but as an actor—and from the knowledge I have gained, we should prepare to see Michael Humphreys’ big break-out soon as well. The mother of the Humphreys boys takes a...
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