A simpler time for provoking.
All posts by Samuel Carlisle
The Articulations of Anne Hollander (1930—2014)
The language of clothing is wordless and yet she found the words to convey the effect.
Nabokov’s Reflection: Stacy Schiff’s Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)
“I am always there,” Mrs. Nabokov said of her husband’s writing, “but well hidden”.
Run-On One-Liners: James Wolcott’s Lucking Out
The Vanity Fair critic recounts his decade with the Village Voice, watching movies with Pauline Kael and watching Lou Reed get caught trying to record the band Television at CBGBs.
Broadcast’s Berberian Sound Studio
Broadcast’s soundtrack to the film of the same name.
“Minding the Sensitivities”
Fiction
Ambling with The Master
Certainty through sophistry in Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film.
A Heart-Shaped World: Miranda July’s No One Belongs Here More Than You
In her short story collection, the author knows that we long for love far more than we ever have love, even when it’s laying right beside us.
Martin Amis’ House of Meetings
The narrator of Amis’ latest novel is both a victim and a perpetrator, a soldier in the Soviet “army of rapists” and later a prisoner in the gulag system.
“Dorky Pleasures”
Fiction