Books
Reader’s Diary: George Seferis's ‘Six Nights on the Acropolis’
George Seferis's mercurial tone can turn on a dime from lyricism to humor and back again, just as his characters shuttle between sensual abandon and neurotic self-flagellation.
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A Fictional Photographer Chronicles a Changing City
For several years, Ben Katchor explored in comics the vanishing (or long gone) rituals we associate with life in America's metropolitan centers.
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A Luminous NYPL Reading Room Reopens After a Two-Year Restoration
The central space of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building had been closed for repairs after one of the plaster rosettes on its ceiling plummeted to the ground in May 2014.
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Ed Ruscha’s Cactus Omelette and 75 Other Recipes by Artists and Writers
The new Artists' and Writers' Cookbook compiles recipes and personal food-related stories from 76 contemporary artists and writers, from Swoon's Mississippi ratatouille to Ed Ruscha's cactus omelette and Sanford Biggers' red drink.
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A 19th-Century Master of Light and Violence Reconsidered
In the spring of 1870, Paris had yellow fever. Not the disease, but the color, which spread as quickly as an epidemic among the most fashionable of the French capital. The cause was a gleaming painting named for the biblical John the Baptist-slayer "Salomé" on view at the annual state-sponsored Salo
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Hiroshi Sugimoto's Otherworldly Photographs of Movie Theaters
The question that Hiroshi Sugimoto asked himself in 1976 sounded a bit like a koan: What happens if you shoot a whole movie in a single frame?
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Reader’s Diary: Henri Lefebvre’s ‘Critique of Everyday Life’ (Conclusion)
Encore un effort on Lefebvre. My first go was nothing but objections. Round two started out with admiration but I soon found myself airing further criticism — almost against my will...
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Alice Notley's Crystal City of In-betweenness
Alice Notley's recent book, Benediction, an epic written in ragged grammatical form, further concretizes her work to repossess the historically male-dominated epic poem as a feminist genre.
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The Contemporary Geoglyphs of a Globe-Spanning Art Project
Since 1999, Australian artist Andrew Rogers has traveled the seven continents creating modern geoglyphs with local populations, representing symbols significant to the area's culture with indigenous stone.
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Exploring New York City's Silent Shores
The 600 miles of New York City's shoreline that secured its status as a center of trade in the 18th century now host some of its more forgotten spaces.
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Reader’s Diary: Henri Lefebvre's ‘Critique of Everyday Life’ (Continued)
“Information is increasing while direct contacts are in decline. Relations are becoming more numerous while their intensity and authenticity are diminishing,” wrote Henri Lefebvre in 1961, and by 1981 he understood that this would entail “a solitude all the more profound for being overwhelmed by mes
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The Sad Story of the Last Cop on the Moon
In Tom Gauld’s new graphic novel, Mooncop — published by Drawn & Quarterly — the age of the moon has waxed and waned.