Category Archives: Very Close Readings//
Edith Wharton and Henry James Get Into a Car…
THERE ARE THOSE OF US who spent a not insignificant amount of time in grad school reading the works of Henry James. We trolled through The Ambassadors; we wondered when the golden bowl would finally break, and whether, … Continue reading
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Matthew Goulish’s Thoughts on Criticism.
“WE MAY AGREE on the premise that each work of art is at least in part perfect, while each critic is at least in part imperfect. We may then look to each work of art not for its faults and … Continue reading
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A Quote to Explain your Absolutely Fabulous Fashion (work) Week.
Saffie Monsoon: Major motion pictures are made, huge concerts are put on in stadiums. I mean, five hundred thousand troops were mobilized in the Gulf, and a war fought and won in less time, and without everyone included having a … Continue reading
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Found: A Speculative Reading of Lost.
WITH COURSEWORK COMPLETED in Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, Egyptology, Creative Writing, Ceramics, Behavioral Biology, and Archeology, it seems that I’ve created the perfect storm of over-education, thereby allowing me to figure out the ending to the show. This is not a joke. What … Continue reading
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The Lexicographical Legacy of Roseanne.
While writing my last Gent o’ Leis column, the very same one I’ve shamelessly hyperlinked here, I wanted to confirm that tobacconalian was the adjective form of tobacco. And so, I turned to your philological friend and mine, the Oxford … Continue reading
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Fifty Words or Less// The New Yorker.
The January 11, 2009 New Yorker, in 50 of my words, 13 of their words: Some people in Chicago were wrong about most everything; indeed, everyone wants everything but nobody fully understands Shakespeare; we won’t know anything about Justice Sotomayor until we … Continue reading
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Fifty Words or Less// The New Yorker.
The November 30, 2009 New Yorker, summarized in 35 words: The distinctions between life and death, third-world political parties, and the genders do not exist as we know them—largely because of racism, though somewhat to do with sports named “football.” … Continue reading
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Comic Layering, via Marxes and Jackasses.
Comedy relies heavily on the layering principle, meaning that when you take one normal activity or object, and layer it with several more, the layers could potentially lead to a comical situation. A Marx Brothers film brought intrinsic comic … Continue reading
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A Few More Thoughts on Duck Soup.
Though I’ve already written about the Marx Brothers’ 1935 film Duck Soup, I was re-watching it last week, and realized that, of all the Marx Brothers films, this one might be the closest they came to celluloid perfection. Though some … Continue reading
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Intro-spectography in Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night.
The use of color in landscape and setting is a curious, dangerous, oftentimes inaccurate tool. When used incorrectly, these passages read like one of those kiddy menus they hand out at restaurants — sloppily crayoned in by a four-year-old, gummed at … Continue reading
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A Good Lack in a Landscape.
From Eudora Welty’s “Worn Path“: It was December — a bright frozen day in the early morning. This morning, I’m looking at the beginning sentence of “A Worn Path” because of its lack of specificity (in O’Connor-speak, its mysteries and … Continue reading
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Prose to Poetry in Miss Lonelyhearts.
I once asked a poet how she writes poems. Her answer: very, very carefully. For some reason, this response always brings me back to Nathanael West‘s Miss Lonelyhearts. I first heard about this book when Flannery O’Connor mentioned it in … Continue reading
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A Few Bars of Ragtime.
A few passages from the beginning of EL Doctorow‘s 1975 novel Ragtime, transcribed for landscape and setting purposes, with all materials pertaining to matters outside the realm of landscape/setting segregated by double brackets. I feel like a troglodyte for even saying this, but if you haven’t … Continue reading
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A Lovely Postcard regarding Orchids.
Several months ago, I wrote Susan Orleans (author of The Orchid Thief, whom Meryl Streep portrayed in the book’s film adaptation Adaptation) a brief note, asking her if she had ever encountered the man who bred the Brassocattleya “Mt. Hood … Continue reading
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86 Reasons, in the first Two Paragraphs, as to why I couldn’t read The DWP (_evil _ears _rada).
Over the years, more than a few friends have asked me what I thought of The DWP (Ed Note: I’ve decided to use the first initials of any books whose authors earned enough advance money, 1. to hire very large … Continue reading
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