Blog

The Offending Classic

December 10, 2020 - By Nicole Duffy Robertson

Classic Sin: Ballet, Sex, and Dancing Outside the Canon

Photo: Valerie Robin and Fabrice Calmels in Gerald Arpino's Light Rain. Photograph by and courtesy of Herbert Migdoll.

What makes a ballet a classic? Is it earning a permanent place in the history books, or is it being worthy of the Herculean investment of hours in the studio, the tireless work of the dancers and coaches, the resources, media and marketing machine required to bring it to life, or both? Who decides, and more importantly, what goes into that calculus? Today the re-evaluation of the Western theatrical dance canon continues as ballet and modern dance are challenged in the academy.[1] In concert dance, these questions are a matter of survival: the performed...

Decommisioned: An Obituary

December 9, 2020 - By Daniel Nevárez Araújo

Photo: University of Central Florida

the soul, after all
doesn’t exist by itself
it needs to take the form
of the things it inhabits…
-Elidio La Torre Lagares, from Arecibo Observatory

On December 1st, I woke up to the news that the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory had collapsed. A cable holding the main platform in place snapped, sending the structure crashing down early in the morning. The news was first shared by local meteorologist Deborah Martorell and would soon spread like wildfire on local and international news outlets. The vast majority of my friends as well as public figures expressed...

Autumn Journal on Autumn Journal: 17-18

December 8, 2020 - By Michael Thurston

(Photo: Aristotle, manuscript miscellany of philosophical writings, mainly texts by Aristotle (Greek) Rome, 1457. Cod. Phil. gr. 64, fol. 8v, Austrian National Library. Austrian National Library, unknown author.)

Read Parts 15-16 here

“monologue / Is the death of language”

The fancy word is “intersubjectivity.” We become the selves we are (to the extent that we are “selves,” but that’s the subject, so to speak, for another blog series altogether) not in or through our isolation but, instead, precisely as we interact with, are perceived by, receive feedback from others. One stream of...

10 Questions for Julia Thacker

December 7, 2020 - By Edward Clifford

I wanted to build a boat and launch for Amsterdam.
Foxtrot on the upper deck in a moon-spangled frock.
I wanted to hold the sky like a bowl, smudge the clouds.
Bring a sentence to its knees. I moved to a spit of land on the coast.
Lit a hurricane lamp in the window. Lined my eyes with kohl.
Wore Goodwill dresses with sun-faded sleeves and glass buttons
My journal entries resembled waves.
—from "When he said Sell a book, I heard Sail," Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
In 8th grade I wrote a poem for St. Patrick's Day, believing that poetry required an occasion. All I remember of it is a leprechaun and one line: Watch out! (Like our current...

10 Questions for Kathleen Hawes

December 4, 2020 - By Edward Clifford

Last year a lonely possum crept into my bed. This possum has problems: booze, Benzos, Oxy, you name it. He'll snort, smoke, or pop pretty much anything. He can't pay his rent, but he's good in the sack. At night he tickles the inside of my thighs with his whiskers till I just can't take it, then I have to pull him up close. His tail is bald and skinny. His teeth are pointed, widely spaced.

—from "Opossum Problems," Volume 61, Issue 3 (Fall 2020)

Tell us about one of the first pieces you wrote.
English class, freshman year of high school, I made an abysmal attempt at poetry. There was an allusion to sex in one line, something about “tangled sheets” (ugh). During the next parent-teacher...