Western science gradually catching up to Polynesian oral history On Hawaii’s Napo’opo’o pier, Christina Thompson’s husband, Seven, walks over to one of the “big Hawaiian guys with tattooed calves” overseeing the kayak rentals. Seven asks, “how much for a kayak?” “Thirty dollars,” says the man, then, “twenty for you, brother.” This nameless […]
POEMS, LIKE BAROQUE LASERS
Sally Wen Mao’s Oculus, a call for celebration There are two title poems—poems entitled “Oculus”—in Sally Wen Mao’s second collection, Oculus: The first poem elegizes a “nineteen-year-old girl in Shanghai who uploaded her suicide onto Instagram”; the second reflects, ekphrastically, on a performance by Solange Knowles. The poems rhyme. That is, Mao’s obsession […]
EXCERPT: ‘A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO CANNABIS’
“We should create a list of strains and products that work for each of our conditions,” said the cancer patient as they settled into their chairs. “And put it on the internet so everyone can see it.” The rest of the group murmured their approval.
BOOK REVIEW: ANXIETY AND THE EQUATION
It’s not a textbook, but there’s “something you can learn from it” Ludwig Boltzmann was an excruciatingly anxious person and also one of the best scientific minds of his generation. Boltzmann’s revolutionary work on entropy paved the way for Einstein’s quantum revolution of the early 20th century, and yet he still spent hours, […]
INTERVIEW WITH ASAD HAIDER
Author of Mistaken Identity: Anti-Racism and the Struggle Against White Supremacy Asad Haider is a founding editor of Viewpoint magazine and author of a new book, Mistaken Identity: Anti-Racism and the Struggle Against White Supremacy. He is speaking with Ben Tarnoff on the topic “What is to be done?” this Thursday (Nov 29) […]
CYCLING FOR DUMMIES
Daniel De Visé on his new book The Comeback The Sox have done it again this week, winning the fourth World Series in 15 years. You can’t walk down the street without seeing a proud fan sauntering with a Red Sox cap cocked on their head. A little over a hundred years ago, […]
BOOK REVIEW: TWO VEGETABLES THINK BETTER THAN ONE
The Revolutionary Genius of Plants by Stefano Mancuso In one of Roald Dahl’s creepier short stories, “The Sound Machine,” an inventor rigs together a listening device that converts the inaudible screams of plants into human frequencies. When the inventor, named Klausner, plucks a daisy, he hears “a faint high-pitched cry, curiously inanimate.” Do […]
BOOK REVIEW 6.28.18
The Lost Family by Jenna Blum. HarperCollins. 413 pages. $27. A number of writers who teach at Grub Street (an independent “creative writing center” on Boylston Street) have been landing on the bestseller lists and reeling in million-dollar advances. Among them is Celeste Ng, whose novel Little Fires Everywhere is No. 14 this week. […]
BOOK REVIEW 5.31.18
There There by Tommy Orange In America we always seem to be in search of the authentic. Whether it’s Jay Z or Cardi B, we like our artists to keep it real. So it’s not surprising that there is a lot of buzz about a novel written by a Native American set in […]
UNIVERSALIZING RESISTANCE
A Q+A with BC sociology professor Charles Derber on his new book Why did you decide to publish a book on “universalizing resistance” at this particular moment in history? Because our survival is at stake. Universalizing resistance is a path toward dismantling the militarized capitalism before it wipes us all out. Climate change and […]
