Students of the Writer’s Life Colloquium share what they are reading to navigate these uncertain times.
Blog
Inheriting Grandma’s Sex Shop
Vanessa and I consider the fact that shame will be the end of these humble businesses staying in stores.
This is Not a TV Review
Maybe it’s the writer in me who can’t resist turning casual conversations into character studies, who treats TV episodes like weekly installments of self imposed personal growth homework.
Flaco II: At the New York Historical
Nothing could bring him back. And then I heard his voice.
Sound of Suspiria
Seven years later, Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria has only gotten sharper, stranger, and more essential.
Signs of Spring
Spring is upon us, but how do we know?
An Ode to the Blue Note
At the venue, the line between artist and spectator is meaningfully blurred.
Author Jason Reynolds never gets boring
For his 2024 novel Twenty-Four Seconds, Reynolds realized that there were not many books addressing “black boys’ tenderness.”
Papa, Ieyasu, and Me
Outside the wide kitchen window, the silhouette of Mount Fuji grew hazy in the dusk. When I declared, “Ieyasu is my favorite,” the pride in Papa’s smile was palpable through his thick, silvery beard.
For Comrades and Lovers
More than anything, Glenn Ligon’s UC installation embodies Whitman’s ideas of solitude as time spent alone that inversely enables someone to come closer to the city around them.
DOG Tinder®
The truth is, I don’t feel as strong a connection to people and the city when I’m dogless.
I Bought a Rug
Recently, I looked around my room and thought, if I were to die inexplicably in my sleep, I would be surrounded by nothing.
Unbecoming Homeless
Who cares about which direction the stocks are headed when you don’t know where you and your family will be sleeping tonight?
Cecilia Gentili’s Legacy, Southern Transness, and the Reclamation of Sainthood
Above all, Cecilia embodied the spirit of a saint, transcending the boundaries of convention and challenging sanctimony as a trans sex worker of color.
I HATED THE MOVIE, BARBIE.
Yes, the production design and costume design (which, if you’re counting, were BOTH nominated) are meticulous and delicious. The mostly pink pastel color palette is like visual cotton candy. But, much like real cotton candy, it is just a dessert; scrumdiddlyumptious, but not a meal.
Flaco in Memoriam
To encounter him was a blessing.
NYC Babies & Dogs Just Don’t Give a F*ck
The vibrant tapestry of city life leaves these pint-sized locals unfazed, a stark contrast to their counterparts living elsewhere who find wonder in the smallest of things.
Dos Cabezas: Basquiat × Warhol at the Brant Foundation
The combined work of these artists is at its best when their individual contributions become indistinguishable. Their two different styles—Basquiat’s menagerie of symbols and words drawn from street signs and textbooks and allegory, and Warhol’s infamous screen print copy-and-paste—melt into a sea of painted expression.
20 Seasons of American Dad
American Dad! has maintained significant popularity and raised the bar for syndicated adult animation by having the greatest thing a sitcom can have: an impeccable cast of characters.
Family Reunion: NYCB’S 75th Anniversary
It was the youngest looking crowd of all ages ever; Ballet has a way of preserving the body in time. While wrinkles and sallow skin are an inevitability, their bodies remain strong and erect, belying their age.
Palestinian Liberation is Jewish Liberation
Is Los Angeles not already the Holy Land? And what about New York? We were never a country. The diaspora goes too deep. Let us free back into the diaspora again.