Sorel Syndrome
by Sai Pradhan
Twice this past year, I experienced a racing heart, confusion, and a general loss for words at art shows. If only it had been an abundance of awe-inspiring beauty and meaning that was responsible for it!
Sorel Syndrome
I Am Quite at My Leisure
I Am Quite at My Leisure: A Journey Through Jane Austen, Stardew Valley, and the Romanticization of Spare Time
by Ireland Headrick
Donald Sutherland sinks back in his chair, tears gated, eyebrows wild and raised, preparing to deliver Mr. Bennet’s final lines in Joe Wright’s 2005 film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. He is dressed in a voluminous white frock, his cravat wrapped up to the chin, his brown waistcoat buttoned almost, but not quite, to the top. In the generous light of a double-hung window, he sits underneath a dark-toned oil painting of a sheep. The desk in front of him is piled with books, suggesting an interest in reading, as well as a white orchid and a watering can, suggesting an interest in horticulture.
How Art School Is A Scam (And Also Totally Necessary)
How Art School Is A Scam (And Also Totally Necessary)
by Dave Baker
When I graduated high school I was a bit lost. Shocking, I know. I didn’t know what direction to take my life other than to go to college, because that’s the thing you do. I knew I wanted to make comics and be a cartoonist. But going to college seemed like a complete waste of time.
Notes on Darius Jones’s “Legend of e’Boi (The Hypervigilant Eye)”
Darius Jones sits alone on stage minutes before tonight’s show at the Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center in Poughkeepsie, calmly detonating blasts from his alto saxophone, two-to-three second streaks booming across the theater and fading to a moment’s silence just in time for the next one. They’re foghorn loud, piercing, but they seem like more than mere warm up exercises. Perhaps he’s testing the structural integrity of the joint and/or mapping the room’s acoustics—gauging the capabilities of tonight’s worksite and the best ways to utilize them.
How to See in the Dark
How to See in the Dark
by Kathe Koja
It takes a little more than 30 minutes—I just learned this on a moonlight nature walk—30 minutes for the human eye to adjust to the deep ambient darkness that exists beyond city lights, and be able, or start to be able, to distinguish shapes, judge peripheral objects, recognize certain colors, find your way. Without that adjustment we blunder, fall, get turned around, we need to wait for the dark to open our eyes.
It’s Fun to Think About, Sometimes
I first met Lauren in 2012, while she was a patient at the detox I worked at in Arizona. According to the Mayans, the world was supposed to end then, but her recovery, and our relationship, was just beginning.
Notes on the World of Thumbscrew
Across the lake to the north, the sky darkens, blue to grey. The wind whips. Pines and birches bend. But the skies above remain clear. We’re about fifty yards offshore, standing on and swimming around rocks a few feet below the surface. Waves rise and fall. The water is warm and splashes our faces. It feels safe, comforting, to be in this space, with a beer to sip, balance to maintain, and a distant storm to watch.
Delusions and a Cursed Book
Delusions and a Cursed Book
by Gina Tron
Rotating stage lights illuminated the words in my hand hot pink, morphing them to electric blue and then magenta as I read a poem about toxic workplaces…