Most Recent Posts

…Someone You Should Listen To…

We have all shared this experience. You come across something exciting, refreshing, and beautiful and before you even fully digest it you get the urge to share it and spread it to all in your …

I sent the following two paragraphs to my local newspaper this morning: 

Today’s conservative “news” sources spread unfounded conspiracy theories and take character assassination to a new level. But it is nearly impossible to convince their viewers that what they

Kelly O’Connor, Wonder

Please join us in congratulating the poets listed below, who are nominated for a Pushcart Prize for their work published at Escape Into Life during the calendar year of 2019. Click each link to see the poem …

Several cartooning notables passed from the scene in the last few months. I wrote about Stan Lee about a year ago; this past August we lost Richard Williams, the genius animator responsible for A Christmas Carol, The Thief and …

What is it like to live in Iowa in the months prior to the “first in the nation caucus?” Busy. And this year with 20+ candidates trying to connect with Iowa Democrats, it can be dizzyingly busy. We start to …

Isabella Clara Eugenia as painted by Clara Peeters (Painted Ladies Series), acrylic on canvas, 40″ x 40″, 2019

The Ecstasy of Sister Plautilla Nelli (Painted Ladies Series), acrylic on paper, 24″ x 20″, 2019

Clara’s World: Clara Peeters  …

Art by Janet Rickus

Self-Portrait as Alexa, as Negative Capability

O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts.  
O origin story, original myth. This is an ode

to prototype, to empyrean fire. For I was made—
yes. Manufactured …

The cartooning world is abuzz; apparently, Gary Larson is bringing back his seminal comic panel The Far Side over 24 years after laying down his pen. Visitors to his website are greeted with a cartoon of a man in a …

Alev Lenz: Soul to Soul

By Dan Ursini © 2019

Alev Lenz is a German-Turkish pop singer-songwriter with a huge gift for orchestrating  connections—among musicians, within the music itself, and between the composer and the listener. She has surfaced through …

Betrayal
By Harold Pinter
Directed by Jamie Lloyd
Broadway—Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, 242 W. 45^th St., New York, NY

Reviewed by Scott Klavan – October 17, 2019

Betrayal, by Harold Pinter, opened on Broadway in January …

DuZinc, digital image with Photoshop manipulation, finished archival print, 48″ x 32″, 2018

The Sweater, digital image with Photoshop manipulation, finished archival print, 48″ x 32″, 2018

Fire Cat, digital image with Photoshop manipulation, finished archival print, …

I recently lost a dear friend, Frank Lettiere, who by any measure was the most colorful, spontaneous, and unconventional character I have ever encountered. This past Saturday at his favorite bar on Chicago’s south side, family and friends gathered to …

One day Scott Poole the poet discovered he was an also artist. Since then has created an art chapbook called Vacancy. Here are selections from it—poems and paintings, both by Scott Poole.

Spring

Perhaps all of us want to …

Art by Andrea Offermann

Poets Rob Carney and Scott Poole have collaborated on a book of poems based on the news. It’s called The Last Tiger is Somewhere and is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press in 2020. Here are a few …

Greg Mort

Rob Carney

King Midas

I get that the guy’s an idiot,
but how is this the cat’s fault?

From claws and purring
to a golden coma,

from eyes full of lightning
to an object lesson in greed;

not …

Duy Huynh, Metamorphosis of a Metaphor

2019 Best of the Net Nominations

for work published between July 1, 2018 and June 30, 2019

Please join us in congratulating Escape Into Life’s poetry nominees for Best of the Net. Click the …

There There

by Tommy Orange

Knopf 2018, Vintage Books 2019

reviewed by Seana Graham

I happened to start reading this book on my way home to Santa Cruz from the greater Bay Area. My sister had dropped me off at …

Art by Maggie Taylor, Dream Pool

A Thin Space

“But a love poet must somehow make love/if only to language…”
                                            —Dennis O’Driscoll, “To a Love Poet”

I’m having a moment, you say

as we sit at a table by …

Alexis Rockman

To support Greta Thunberg, 350.org, and the students who began a push for more climate awareness on this particular day, Friday, September 20, 2019, and all through the week to follow, we offer these artists/works of art and …

Outlaud, acrylic on silk organza, 39.5″ x 79.5″, 2018-2019

Our Wall, acrylic on silk organza, 39.5″ x 22″, 2018-2019

Swallow, acrylic on silk organza (double painting*), 79.5″ x 22″, 2018-2019

Glazing (Veladura), acrylic on silk organza …

This Is Bric-a-Brac!

by Dan Ursini ©2019

The history of popular music is, to a point, a chronicle of remakes. There can be all kinds of reasons for re-doing a big hit from the past—most of them on the safe …

If Indiana Jones was investigating locked secrets of old civilizations, mine involved glaciers that predated them by thousands of years. I alluded to some of the natural Alaskan wilderness with all its magnificence in my last post in July. It …

Stefano Unterthiner, Albatrosses

Karen Craigo

Ex Ornithomancer

He thinks one time he spotted
a frigate bird by the cove, way 
off course, but maritime winds
might pull anything his way. 
He shows me where he saw 
the mandarin duck, …

Art by Drew Tyndall

It’s Labor Day, when many of us, ironically, have the day off work…to read poetry and admire art! Many others celebrate International Workers day on May 1.  Whenever and however you celebrate, thanks to us all …

Bulletproof by Matthew Murrey
Jacar Press, 2019
Book Cover Design by Daniel Krawiec             

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

Matthew Murrey, whose poems I have read for many years, is a really sweet guy. That he has written …

Review of The Inheritance by Justin Hamm
Poems and Photographs
Blue Horse Press, 2019

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

The Inheritance is divided in two: Poems in the first half, Photographs in the second. I count myself …

Chi Chi, mixed media, 34″ x 30″, 2019

Bullie for You,  mixed media, 41″ x 41″, 2019

American Idol, mixed media, 48″ x 76″, 2017

Dasch of Taste, mixed media, 24″ x 35″, 2016

Dasching Red…

A strange thing happened to me after I wrote a blog piece about green birds. I discovered a bright metallic green bee species! Have you ever seen a green bee? Me neither!

This bee, actually two of them, must …

Art by Judith Mullen

Rob Carney

Why We Have Rain

One day, tired of a changeless sky,
a river and a raven

had a shapeshifting contest, each one
chasing the other’s idea downstream.

When the river thought about mist rising …

 Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations

Broadway—The Imperial Theatre, 249 W. 45^th Street, New York, NY

Written by Dominique Morrisseau

Directed by Des McAnuff

Reviewed by Scott Klavan on August 2, 2019

I’ll start …

Art by Mario Soria

The ecstasy now
 
is simply my hand scratching my head
underneath what is left of my hair
and noticing the rolled cuffs–plaid–
of the man exiting the parking lot.
Or “the man existing the parking lot,”…

On July 16th I was in the midst of a week long rafting adventure on the mighty Copper river in Alaska, which is fed from 26 glaciers and is about half a mile wide in some areas. In this wilderness, …

Grab a Snake by the Tail
by Leonardo Paduro
Translated by Peter Bush
Bitter Lemon Press, 2019

Reviewed by Kim Kishbaugh

I’m a bit of a sucker for mysteries and police procedurals. Doesn’t matter in what format: novel, short story, …

By Dan Ursini ©2019

Usually I provide YouTube video links to songs I write about. But in this article I am also providing links to the album versions of the same songs at Bandcamp. They provide a much better …

dancing with myself, mobile digital art, 2019

broken-free, mobile digital art, 2019

at the end of a dream, mobile digital art, 2019

keeping touch, mobile digital art, 2019

reach, mobile digital art, 2019

emerge, …

Art by Heidi Lender

Elizabeth Kerper

Old Yeller

I said I would not, could not, listen to a book where the dog
died and my mother said okay, slotting the last cassette 
of Anne of Green Gables back into place …

It seems I’ve reached a time in my life when I am doomed to revisit issues previously addressed. Last time it was the reaction to that dumb Trump/Netanyahu cartoon. Today’s regurgitation regards dead refugee kids and editorial cartoonists’ reaction to …

I’ve been thinking about Eliza Doolittle lately. That scene in “My Fair Lady” where she’s supposed to speak more clearly with a mouth full of marbles. Which never made any sense—a mouth full of marbles makes it impossible to say …

Jeff Felker

In this collaboration between poets Jennifer Finstrom and Elizabeth Kerper, Jennifer confides in literary figures about her divorce, and Elizabeth writes poems about female characters who are not the protagonist of a literary work. In the last …

Angels on the Block, collage and acrylic on paper, 18″ x 24″, 2017

Divine Fertility #1, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 48″ x 60″, 2017

Knowledge and Power, diptych, acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 36″ …

Toon Musings: The Grey Lady Shoots the Messenger

When last I graced these pages, I wrote about a botched political cartoon: a ham-handed attempt to criticize the fraught relationship between Bibi Netanyahu and our own grifting, dim-witted, wannabe fascist president. …

Passing Through Humansville by Karen Craigo
Sundress Publications, 2018

Cover art by Charli Barnes at Charcoal Studio 
Image credit Peter Bagi

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

I met Karen Craigo once, briefly, at an AWP Conference. (She probably …

The Big House in Baghdad, Part 3

The descent of the afternoon summer sun goes on simultaneously with the rise of the people in the Big house. A beehive of activity again, after being dormant for awhile, working adults …

Alexander Landerman

Richard Jones

Notre Dame

My daughter and I traveled without our family,
visiting the week before the church burned.
We stayed in a good hotel on the Left Bank
and walked everywhere—Deyrolle, Ladurée —
all the places a …

The After-Normal: Brief Alphabetical Essays on a Changing Planet

By David Carlin and Nicole Walker

Rose Metal Press, 2019

reviewed by Seana Graham

In this latest Rose Metal Press offering, two friends who are writers—or writers who are friends–and live …

As a little boy I was so happy I believed this must be the paradise adults talk about: I could roam the Big House at will, find secret rooms, explore dark closets, and unlock strange old chests. There was even …

King Lear by William Shakespeare

Directed by Sam Gold

Broadway: Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48^th St., New York, NY

Reviewed by Scott Klavan on May 17, 2019

The expression “He who yells is wrong” came to mind more …

Fog Is Pouring Over History, hand-embroidered cotton on cotton, 25.5″ x 19.5″, 2018

You Confused My Heart, hand-embroidered cotton on cotton, 12″ x 34″, 2018

Far Over the Sea, hand-embroidered cotton on cotton, 19″ x 22″, 2018…

Pauchi Sasaki, photo by Edi Hirose

Pauchi Sasaki: One-Person Micro-Culture

Part 3 of Classical:NEXT Series

By Dan Ursini © 2019

Pauchi Sasaki is a deeply gifted Peruvian-Japanese composer from Lima. In 2016 she was selected to apprentice under American …

Amanda Gookin & the Forward Music Project

Part 2 of Classical:NEXT Series

By Dan Ursini © 2019

Cellist Amanda Gookin was disturbed because in the classical music culture, social issues are seen as appropriate content for a private chat among …

This morning I saw a female goldfinch in a yellow tree. They matched. That got me wondering: Why aren’t there more green birds?

Okay Google: Why aren’t there more green birds?

Google: There is a lot of green in nature …

Abigail Reynolds, Double Cube Room

Because I Want to Give Them More Than the Small, Gray Stone

of my sorrow, I take them to see the traveling exhibit,
the girl with the pearl on her ear.

I say, Look—the painted …

The Lark

by E. Nesbit

Hutchinson and Co, 1922, Penguin, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

Oh, Pallas, take your owl away,

And let us have a lark instead

                    –Thomas Hood  (epigraph)

Although Gore Vidal wrote in a 1964 …

The Energy of Discovery: Composer Emma O’Halloran

By Dan Ursini © 2019

Recently, I was contacted by Classical:NEXT, a big  annual networking event in Europe for Classical/Art/New Music. It is held in the Netherlands in Rotterdam, a great music …

Adam Hunter Caldwell

John Guzlowski

My Mother’s First Winter in Germany

a sonnet

My mother never thought she’d survive
that first winter in the slave labor camps.
She had no coat, no hat, no gloves,
just what she was wearing …

Henny Youngman was the comedian who memorialized the phrase, “take my wife… please!” Come to find out, his wife would laugh along with the crowd at his jokes, even though he made her look, well, not as smart as the …

I love a good political cartoon—always have. I used to read my dad’s Bill Mauldin collections in my youth, and have fairly extensive collections of my own of cartoons by Jeff MacNelly, Pat Oliphant, and Tom Toles. I like the …

Via Basel: The Big House in Baghdad

In the early 1930s my maternal grandfather, Abdul-Ahad, a successful merchant, moved his family from Mosul, his ancestral city, to Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, to expand his business. They lived in …

Dwayne Butcher

A continuation of our celebration of National Poetry Month 2019 with poems about poetry, here by Jennifer Finstrom, who uses them to write about divorce…..

I Confide in the Lady of Shalott about My Divorce

And …

What ails the hemlocks?, copperplate etching, 12.5″ x 12.5″, 2019

What is being eroded?, multiplate copperplate etching, 12.5″ x 12.5″, 2019

What are we stripping away?, zinc etching, 12.5″ x 12.5″, 2019

Is this ‘stabilizing’?, multiplate …

L’Animal dans la decoration

Erica Goss

Inexact

                               An Evening With Marvin Bell, 6/28/16, Eugene, Oregon

The man sitting next to me
wears a pink shirt. His smile
is like a sleek rangy animal.
It makes me greedy and grateful
 
at …

Roxane Elfasci

Music for Music: Clair de Lune and The Enigma

By Dan Ursini ©2019

On YouTube there is a music video of Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” which is spellbinding, a rendition of exquisite tenderness.

The number of views is …

Back before the world was surrounded by satellites, back before the internet, back before color television–can you even imagine that far back? There were phones and there was hot-and-cold running water, but there wasn’t television everywhere, especially in rural areas …

Being an activist these days is in vogue again, maybe a revival of the sixties. Some credit probably goes to the Trump phenomena and the high energy reaction. Personally I have not identified myself as such most of my life …

Jeanie Tomanek, Were I But Whole

Angela Narciso Torres

Pantoum with Lines from Lucille Clifton

It’s a long time after, and I just wanted to know.
What was it like on the boat?
I wonder what became of our Mama?…

Some Things That Fly There Be, scratchboard drawing and mixed acrylic painting on claybord, 20″ x 16″, 2018

Our Share of Night to Bear, Our Share of Morning (soldier #3), scratchboard drawing and mixed acrylic painting media on …

Evidence of V: a novel of fragments, facts and fictions

by Sheila O’Connor

Rose Metal Press, 2019

reviewed by Seana Graham

Judging by the popularity of Henry Louis Gates’ PBS show Finding our Roots and genealogy websites like Ancestry.com, learning …

Pooja Campbell

Poems and art to help us celebrate and consider International Women’s Day, 2019. Please click on the poets’ and artist’s names to see more of their work.

Risa Denenberg

Whirlwind @ Lesbos

We met in Istanbul
where your …

Becca Stevens, photo credit Harald Krichel CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)

Becca Stevens: Visionary As Team Player

By Dan Ursini ©2018

Becca Stevens is a gifted songwriter and arranger, singer and instrumentalist, intent on investigating the full amplitude of …

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time worrying about lies spread on television, radio, cable and online media. This morning I had a grand idea: let’s put warning labels on programs and news feeds to give consumers a way …

In my previous column, I discussed hair types, our common humanity, and the futility of attempting to compartmentalize the black hair experience. Here, I explore the stereotypes and the dangers of conformity. When hair gets tangled in biases and prejudices, …

bed desert, woodcut, 9″ x 11″, 2018

fuji-san from space, woodcut, 10-1/2″ x 8″, 2018

fuji-san is a girl, silkscreen monoprint, 30″ x 22″, 2018

kawaguchiko 1, woodcut, 10″ x 17″, 2018

kawaguchiko 2, woodcut, …

Being a Cub Fan

How many
minutes
of my life
have I spent
with hands
clasped
hoping for one
to go out.

Immortality

          for the left-handed pitcher

He pointed
to me
and said:
never
underestimate
a veteran
who might…

As we enter the third year of being terrorized by our Orange-faced President, it occurred to me that I go through stages of alarm, sort of like the years following the September 11^th terrorist attack. Maybe we should think …

Bo Bartlett, History Lesson

High School Poem

Because it’s Valentine’s Day
My teacher says we ought to read some poems
So she hangs them up all over the school.

In the hallway, a poem about trembling field mice,
A nightingale …

Ione Rucquoi, Bete Noir

It’s almost Valentine’s Day. Please enjoy these unconventional love poems, and look for another valentine to appear here tomorrow. Find more unusual love poems at the end of this mini-anthology via the links to our past …

Scott Kahn

On February 10^th 2006 Chris penned a letter to me on the occasion of my 60^th birthday, four days later (on Valentine’s Day). Because of its length (6 pages) and depth, after briefly perusing it I …

Struck: A Husband’s Memoir of Trauma and Triumph

by Douglas Segal

Prospect Park Books, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

In October of 2012, actress Susan Segal was driving home on L.A.’s Hollywood Boulevard after picking up her daughter …

ARTARIANICA is the collaborative effort of Jessy Randall and Briget Heidmous. Jessy writes words. Briget draws.

Briget, born 1989, is an artist and creative entrepreneur. Her website is: www.briget-heidmous.com

Jessy, born 1969, has had poems …

Hair is the most prominent adornment of the human body. Hair, or the lack thereof, is a hallmark of our shared humanity. We take our hair for granted even as we fuss over it. We spend a lot of time, …

A World of Her Own, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2018

Before Breakfast, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2017

Dream Pool, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2018

Later, archival inkjet print, dimensions variable, 2017

Ship of …

To start the year off with a surprise, Dan Ursini, who usually tells us about musicians he finds at YouTube in his Music for Music column, reports today on the visual artist Vera Klement.

Vera Klement’s Woodcuts …

Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
by Kathleen Rooney
St. Martin’s Press, 2017

Reviewed by Kim Kishbaugh

Lillian Boxfish is 84 years old (well, truthfully, 85, but what’s a little fib among casual acquaintances?) and facing New Year’s Eve in her …

Eternally Yours, watercolor and acrylics, 2016

Blue Heavens Trio, alcohol inks and acrylics, 2018

Communion of Saints, acrylics, 2012

Stained Glass Saints, watercolors and acrylics, 2013

Messengers of Light, alcohol inks and acrylics, 2018

Golden …

The Waverly Gallery
By Kenneth Lonergan
Directed by Lila Neugebauer
Broadway: Golden Theatre, 252 W. 45^th Street, New York, NY
December 14, 2018

Reviewed by Scott Klavan

Hyperbole makes for lazy criticism, but it’s not extreme to say that …

Well, I see by my current iTunes playlist that it’s that time of year again: that enchanting time when a demigod strides the land, casting a seasoned eye on the children of our hapless race, carefully weighing whether they’ve behaved …

Night Court
by Erica Goss
Glass Lyre Press, 2017
Winner of the 2016 Lyrebird Prize

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

Gosh, I love poetry. I have been loving these poems by Erica Goss for some time now, and …

My Girl’s Green Jacket
by Mary Meriam
Headmistress Press, 2018

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

When I read Mary Meriam’s poems in My Girl’s Green Jacket, I am tempted to think, This is someone who lives her …

The day was perfect, sunny with a chill in the air. The wind had slowed down to a gentle breeze and the waves were manageable. “The Neptune,” a comfortable boat we rented, was chugging along at a good clip in …

Matheus Lopes, Manifesto

We congratulate our Pushcart Prize nominees for 2018. Please click the various links to see more poems, features, and award features, and to see more art by Matheus Lopes here at EIL. These poems resonate now, together, …

King Kong
Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway, New York, NY

Directed by Drew McOnie

Reviewed by Scott Klavan
November  29, 2018

There’s something missing from the current musical of the classic monster movie King Kong, at the Broadway Theatre. Hard to …

Music for Music: Jacob Being Jacob

By Dan Ursini ©2018

Last year, two songs from Jacob Collier’s debut album, In My Room, won Grammys. One was with an audacious cover of “The Flintstones” theme.

The other Grammy was for …

Barbara Schneider

Warm Spell, February

For the first time in weeks the wind doesn’t cut like an insult.
My dog feels it too. I slacken her leash so she can dig her nose

in the wet underbrush, letting her sniff …

My post-election pledge to myself is to encourage my friends who share political views on Facebook to check their facts. It’s not as easy as it sounds. People who express strong feelings already think they have all the facts they …

It is with some sadness that I note the recent passing of Stan Lee, impresario extraordinaire. When I started reading comic books, I started out with DC—the home of Batman, Superman, the Flash, and Blackhawk. They were mostly bland, upright …

Citizen Illegal
By José Olivarez
Haymarket Books, 2018
BreakBeat Poets series

I’m a couple generations away from the immigrant experience. My grandparents on one side emigrated from Sweden in the early 1900s, met and married in this country. On the …

You couldn’t stop the rain in time, inkjet print on cotton rag paper, 2018

(Inspired by Athol Fugard’s The Train Driver)

The nameless ones in the graves, inkjet print on cotton rag paper, 2018

(Inspired by Athol …

Marco Migani aka Inserrirefloppino collage art 

Collagically Speaking, They Have Arrived

By Dan Ursini © 2018

Collagically Speaking, the title of the first album by R+R=NOW, nicely sums up the music of this band.

The word “collagically” evokes the …

Ghostographs: an Album by Maria Romasco Moore

Rose Metal Press, 2018

reviewed by Seana Graham

I was initially a little disappointed that Ghostographs wasn’t released quite in time for me to review for Halloween, but now that I’ve read …

When a young person gets the urge to draw stuff, quite often they will pick an already established work and copy the shit out of it. My particular muse, as a pre-adolescent, was Charles Schulz’s Peanuts. I had …

Anne Siems

You Are Here→•

I will never, despite the spinning,
fly off the Earth.

It’s just not possible.
The grip that holds it all together—

all the oceans and coffee cups,
wheat fields and butter knives,

porches and …

Mary Daniel Hobson

Sanctuary, Two Poems

Webster’s Dictionary defines sanctuary as “a place where someone or something is protected or given shelter.” It can also mean a room in a church, synagogue, etc., where religious services are held. For me …

Natasha Newton

Erica Goss

Hunter’s Moon

We’re bones in October,
toys for the wind
whose fists pound children

to the ground,
bell the pleated skirt
I wear in fifth grade,

blasting my ears with
a desert people’s
sharp syllables.

The …

Embrace, acrylic on paper, 15″ x 12″, 2018

One Good Reason, oil, 30″ x 30″, 2018

Paper Doll, oil, 40″ x 30″, 2017

Stars in Her Crown, oil, 40″ x 30″, 2018

Tangent, oil, 20″ …

Remedios Varo

The Night I Get Diagnosed with MS Under a Blood Moon
 
A coyote appears on the road. This is not a metaphor.
There are scavengers. Smoke hangs in the air
and the red face of the moon is …

Wives’ Tales
by Marjorie Maddox
The Seven Kitchens Press, 2017
Editor’s Series 3.03

Reviewed by Kathleen Kirk, EIL Poetry Editor

In fairy tales, as in life, there is always so much I don’t understand. Ah, that is probably the point—interpretation, …

Mattijn Franssen

It’s CatOber again at Escape Into Life. Look for the (subtle and not-so-subtle, present and missing) cats in these poems & photos….

Virginia Smith Rice 

Frequency (If There’s a Face There Should Be an I)

Tonight is …

Tanya Johnston, [re]-surfacing

Best of the Net Nominations 2018

for work published between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018

Please join us in congratulating Escape Into Life’s nominees for Best of the Net. Click the links to revisit these …

September songs are always in a minor key. They are about Summer Ending and Winter Pending. They are about wishing summer would last longer. That’s just wrong!

Fall is its own world of changing colors and winds that blow warm …

What She Was Saying: Stories

by Marjorie Maddox

Fomite, 2017

reviewed by Seana Graham

I’ve read several short story anthologies lately, and have found myself wondering at times about the best way to read them. Does it matter what …

No Moon in the Eastern Sky

She’s Disappearing

The Soft White Dress and Bouquet

The White Dove

Almost Midnight

Drawing A

Velvet Dress for Olivia

Note: The artist’s original collages are 16″ x 20″; they can be printed archival …

Julia Zanes

Grief Inflammation

A room filled with what has been
disowned :  names, a disfigured religion or two,
a host of paper waifs that slip between rails
and stick underfoot until there is nowhere

left to stand. Nowhere, I …

Michael Chabon’s “Moonglow” bills itself as a novel—the label is right there on the cover. But it’s much more than that as well. It’s equally a quiet, funny, sentimental and probing memoir—or perhaps “memoir”—so much so that the reader might …

Flow

Dazed

Silver Passage to the Underworld

Dimensions

Artist Statement 

My process involves constructing, deconstructing and fragmenting images, data, and information geometrically into triangulated segments. My recent paintings, work and projects investigate the relationship, communication, and documentation of the exchange …

The True by Sharr White
Directed by Scott Elliott
Produced by The New Group
Off Broadway @ The Pershing Square Signature Center

Reviewed by Scott Klavan, Preview, Saturday matinee, September 8, 2018

With his recent play The Other Place, …

From Baghdad to Chicago: Memoir and Reflections of an Iraqi American Physician
by Asad A. Bakir
Archway Publishing, 2018

A commentary by Basel Al-Aswad

When my friend Asad told me several months ago that his memoir has finally been …

A theater essay by Scott Klavan

The Empty Space, by the British director Peter Brook, was published in 1968, to both admiration and discomfort. Derived from a series of lectures begun in ’65, its description of the state of …

Roberto Peluce

Rob Carney

When I Went to Work as a Snow-Globe Designer,

I didn’t do it for the usual reasons.
I did it to get some practice in

before building my house at the bottom of the ocean.
Less …

Khruangbin: Tight Pocket, Global Reach

By Dan Ursini ©2018

Khruangbin is a rock guitar-bass-drums trio which at the very least is creating the first serious updates in surf/exotica music since Dick Dale’s 1962 cover of “Misirlou,” which so memorably opened …

Alejandro Colungo

Mather Schneider

Eclipse, August 21, 2017

I drive to Hermosillo solo
through the midsummer inferno       it’s the day of the eclipse
like a preposterous sentience behind the sun and sky
will slide open a peephole
to look down …