Arts & Life

SOMETHING THAT MAY SHOCK AND DISCREDIT YOU By Daniel Mallory Ortberg At last, we have the work of transgender bathos we didn’t know we needed, but very much do. No, I don’t mean pathos. I mean the term coined by Alexander Pope to signify “the art of sinking in poetry,” …

The term “Orwellian” has always struck me as curiously Orwellian — a mild example of doublespeak that ties an author’s good name to the dystopia he so memorably depicted. (See also “Dickensian” and “Kafkaesque.”) Instead of referring to George Orwell’s crisp prose or moral clarity, “Orwellian” is like the doctor’s …

Danny cleans houses and works in a grocery store. His life is a series of subaltern tasks. He lives in the grocery store, too, in the stockroom. When a regular customer says, “I’ve never seen you,” Danny thinks: “Because I’m just the brown man working at the back of the …

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – A U.S. envoy warned Israel on Sunday not to declare sovereignty over West Bank land without Washington’s consent, pushing back against calls for immediate action by ultra-nationalists within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, unveiled on Jan 28, envisages Israel …

Announce a political campaign, write a book. This two-step is a national pastime. In “Author in Chief,” Craig Fehrman dives deeper into the books that have been written by presidents, before or after they were in office, including Thomas Jefferson’s “Notes on the State of Virginia” and Ronald Reagan’s little-remembered …

LONDON (Reuters) – A lost portrait of Charles Dickens and 25 of his unpublished letters will go on display for the first time after a major acquisition from a private collector. FILE PHOTO: A visitor views the study at the Charles Dickens Museum in central London December 10, 2012. REUTERS/Toby …

KAJIADO, Kenya (Reuters) – Two life-size lions crafted from scrap metal guard the entrance to the studio of Kenyan metal sculptor Kioko Mwitiki. Nearby a leopard, with holes in its metal body to mimic spots, crouches next to a giant elephant sculpture. FILE PHOTO: Kenyan metal sculptor Kioko Mwitiki and …

Artist Antony Gormley poses with a structure called “New York Clearing” in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, New York, U.S., February 3, 2020. REUTERS/Roselle Chen (Reuters) – British sculptor Antony Gormley unveiled a sprawling aluminum art installation called “New York Clearing” to the public under a gray sky …

The film “Chinatown” was meticulously designed to capture a precise moment in Los Angeles’s history. Everything about its look and feel says 1937, not 1936 or 1938. In the same way, “The Big Goodbye,” Sam Wasson’s deep dig into the making of the film, is a work of exquisite precision. …

HEATHCLIFF REDUX A Novella and StoriesBy Lily Tuck “Of course I had read ‘Wuthering Heights,’” reads the opening line of “Heathcliff Redux.” “I read it years ago in high school, but, in my late 20s, I decided to read it again.” The unnamed narrator of Lily Tuck’s restrained but remarkably …