“Pink or Blue? Which is intended for boys and which for girls? This question comes from one of our readers this month, and the discussion may be of interest to others. There has been a great diversity of opinion on …
Essay
Grief Teacher
I want to tell my first-year students too many things. Some are relevant to the course they’re signed up for, but most of them aren’t. I went here, too, I tell them on the first day. Grad school too. What …
Never Trust a Man With a Pinky Ring
I.
When I was young, my father was full of aphorisms, some of which made sense.
Such as the time I was seven and got kicked out of school for fist-fighting a redneck named Jaxton. My mother quoted Christ’s Sermon …
daily routine
We don’t know how to move through this house the way we once did. Tía and Mama and Abuela and me, every hour of ours unfolding in a series of fours—four mugs filled up to the lip with café de …
Your Life, After All
During those bookish Midwestern college years of buzz-cut, leather jacket, and youthful butch bravado she enthusiastically relents to the errant interpretation of her gender — as classmates and professors alike assume her masculine appearance is evidence of actual manliness. This …
AN ANNOTATED HISTORY OF “DORIS”
God creates the world. He asks Adam to name the living creatures, since all kine and fowl of the air and beasts of the field should be endowed with their true names. – Genesis
1973
Birmingham, Alabama. Minnan “Charles” Cheng
Mimes
“This might appear pretentious but the only thing which interests us is what is accurate and true” (Lecoq)
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In acting, creating a character is like being a sea anemone.
You’re the chosen substance: anemone. Tendrils. Whatever the tendrils are …
A heavy thing to carry
The message appeared as I was reading to my nine-year-old daughter Theadora over breakfast. She was perfectly capable of reading to herself, but neither of us yet wanted to relinquish this morning ritual. As I turned a page of Flowers …
When I Crawl Inside This Picnic / I Can Have Complete Thoughts
“I took advantage of being at the seaside to lay a store of sucking-stones….I distributed them equally between my four pockets, & sucked them turn & turn about.”—Beckett, Molloy
My arms are so weak / truly weak, like the stems …
Active Drowning
I envy the grace with which some people take to water: their bodies slick, their confidence unquestioned, feet-first, head-first, the body first a closed fist, then a palm extended, plunging and gliding and breathing with ease. I’ve a graceful doggy …
