From Junichiro Tanizaki, “Some Prefer Nettles”

January 16, 2013 By

tr. Edward G. Seidensticker: Clearly he would one day have to tell Hiroshi everything, to appeal to his reason. Kaname did not doubt that the boy would understand, and to deceive him seemed as reprehensible as to deceive a grownup. Neither he himself nor Misako was wrong, Kaname would say; what was wrong was outdated [...]

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I review “Amour”

January 15, 2013 By

at AmCon. Spoilers.

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“A New Story, In the Field of Abortion-Haunted Horror”

January 8, 2013 By

I review 2012′s The Frozen, at AmCon. Spoilerous!

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“Love Contract”

January 5, 2013 By

That was the original (and better) title of Mike Bartlett’s Contractions, a one-act play I saw at the Studio Theater on Wednesday. The play starts when Emma, some kind of saleswoman, is called to a sterile, glowy dystopian boardroom to speak with a corporate apparatchik about a possible contract violation. The apparatchik, also a lady, [...]

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Helen Rittelmeyer’s best-of-2012 reading list

December 31, 2012 By

is super extra worth your time! Adventuresome and mordant.

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“A Quick Gulp of Yale’s Enormous New Art Gallery”

December 24, 2012 By

Merry Christmas! Here’s me blathering.

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“Wait a while, eternity!”

December 24, 2012 By

Mountain Goats cover “Christmas in Prison.”

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Thy songs were made for the pure and free

December 22, 2012 By

“The Minstrel Boy” always gets me. Here a seven-year-old child sings it–scroll to the second recording–in 1904, at a family Christmas, not long before their “short twentieth century” began. Link via TKB.

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Christmas movies: “The Conversation”

December 18, 2012 By

I talk about The Conversation at the University Bookman. But what am I really saying?

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“My Guilty Pleasure: 1980s Men’s Figure Skating”

December 13, 2012 By

A thing I wrote for a series at Acculturated. As you know, I’m not actually that guilty about this. Anyway, if you would like to see glorious skating, tacky skating, or gloriously tacky skating, check it out!

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