“A museum setting might sterilize the dread of the inevitable ending at which any chronological exhibit explicitly in conversation with environmentalism must arrive. But the accessibility of this juxtaposition right up front makes sure one is clued into that inevitability and made to feel it violently.”
Casually, if cautiously, a throng of men encircles the scarred metal of an American fighter jet, the US F-15. A few, more daring men climb the torched cockpit, and children observe with rapt interest. This first American lapse in the … Read More
Ever since I realized, a few months ago, that the qualities that make me an anomalous 22-year-old are not mere deficiencies but a product of a legacy, I’ve daydreamed of a time when such a legacy would have still been … Read More
This Friday (April 22nd), we here at Princeton have a similar opportunity to enjoy ethnic pageantry in the implicit service of a belief system. Instead of hailing the revolutionary proletariat, no matter what smocks they’re wearing, this Friday’s International Festival Cultural Show, from 8-10pm in the performance tent on the South Lawn of Frist, will be honoring our diverse yet meritocratic university setting which exists ostensibly under the aegis of prudently regulated free enterprise and democratic values.
Whenever people ask me, “What do Andy Samberg and Beethoven have in common?” I usually point to the obvious: “They both have big hair” or, “they both lived in different centuries.” The comedian and the composer both sport unwieldy manes … Read More
She had no plans to grow old, and she had no desire to feel her hips hurt (1). Minna was sitting by her grandmother’s bedside in Munroe Hospital when the woman called out in pain. Even though it has been nine years since her grandmother’s death, at night when Minna tries to fall asleep those screams still play like a broken record in her ears.
My father’s father flew free from the depths of the Russian Empire as an infant, for sticks and stones and angry Christians drove his family out. It was in 1916 or maybe 1917.
Editor’s Note: What follows is composed from features published in The New Yorker between September and December 2010. No alterations beyond rearrangement were made to the texts, excepting those that ensured gender, tense and number agreement.
