about this piece Altoup2022 See More in Art...
Altoup
My Normal Heart
This sounds narcissistic, but every few months, when I have a quiet moment, I like to take out my electrocardiogram and look at it. Oh, it is entirely normal, and maybe that is the point. I marvel at the tall narrow QRS complexes marching regularly across the page at 66 beats per minute, each followed... Continue Reading →
Fall Break
about this piece Fall Break2021Abstract portrait See More in Art...
In Pursuit of Distance
When is a secret no secret at all? Magic — stage magic of the sort that makes elephants disappear — relies on the best efforts of the pyrotechnician and the orchestra and the lighting designer. There is pomp and there is circumstantial evidence of a good time. It’s all quite earnest, quite...
FíorScríobh
Fíor Schríobh is a virtual exhibition on Instagram documenting the fascinating bilingual street signs of Dublin city and shining a light on the beautiful ancient Irish script seen on these signs. The word is pronounced feer-SHCREE-uv in the Irish language (Gaeilge) and means True (Fíor) Script (Scríobh). As the curator...
Book Review: “In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy”
Liberalism! The great empty hole in many radicals’ understanding of the political spectrum. In many respects, we treat it like a fact of life, like the weather, but also as something ephemeral, something that will just go away as soon as the real shit, the facts, the structural realities, assert...
Beauty in Decay
A Q&A with conceptual artist Jennifer Weigel.
The Third Pomelo
In Dallas, the sky was big and blue and the air was thin, as if in the mountains. I felt a slight dizziness during my two days there, staying in a room on Gaston Avenue. It was December, a couple weeks before Christmas. My host was bald, heavyset, and unkempt. He had...
Three Strings
After that kid shot me in the face outside Club Twelve, after the team of surgeons took an hour to dig that tiny resin ball out of the soft tissue in my cheek, after my mom cried in the hospital room when she saw the size of my swollen head—after all that happened, I tried... Continue Reading →
My Knees, Anthony Bourdain and Depression
As I dragged my family around the country from one academic job to another, No Reservations, Bourdain’s culinary travel-and-adventure series was a constant — a comforting event once a week in our hectic lives. I developed a weekly ritual of experimenting with popcorn toppings inspired by each country Bourdain featured. My creations...