In Snow White, the Brothers Grimm fairytale, the evil step-mother Queen daily turns to a mirror and asks, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest in all the land?” And daily, until Snow White reaches adulthood, the mirror replies, “You oh Queen, are the fairest of them all.” It seems interesting to me [...]
For the last week or so, I have been intrigued by Michel Foucault’s concept; “Care of the Self.” I am still exploring it in his writings. What intrigues me most is the phrase itself, set in the context of the care of oneself being the center of one’s ethical universe. It is easy to take [...]
On February 17, 2011, non-violent protesters began to take to the streets in Libya, seeking an end to decades of dictatorship and calling for basic human rights, rule of law, and rudimentary economic development. It was apparent to me, that given; the violent history of the regime, the absence of international media inside Libya, the [...]
Have you been here long? Just about five minutes . . . Check out the Latina, 10 o’clock . . . Just your type. ‘Fecundity of the earth,’ ‘child-bearing hips’ and all that. She’s probably fucked-up in the head, which again, is just your type. You should really go and ask her if she’d be [...]
Although most of the bleary-eyed humans that gather at the dog-park in the early morning perceive only a maelstrom of fur running to-and-fro, a blur of legs and tails that stops now and again for the occasional crotch-sniff, shit, and a usually frustrated attempt at sexual intercourse, on some mornings the curious occurs almost unnoticed [...]
I find myself feeling awkward, which is a good thing, because it means something new is happening. About two weeks ago I discovered the teachings of an intelligent and sincere Benedictine monk, David Steindl-Rast. The level at which he interprets religious traditions, confirmed a line of thought that I’ve left untended for a while. As [...]
I’ve been frustrated by food writing for quite some time. In a single sentence, my frustration is that food writers don’t write in such a way that helps their readers to learn. The internet has been a huge asset to food lovers everywhere and it has continued the trend, started by media outlets such as [...]
Where he would die was a life-long obsession for Arthur Sand. He was at this point, half-way through that length of time that he knew, or at least had once read in an orphaned copy of the Economist at the airport in Atlanta, was typical for a Caucasian male in a developed country. He kept [...]
“Can I stay?” He leaned against the jam of the door. Tweed against timber. Behind him darkness. Despite all my thoughts, now was the moment of choosing. My heart was beating loudly in my chest. I looked back at the room, the artifacts of my domesticity. In that second, somebody else in me said yes. [...]
It didn’t rain for three months in the summer of nineteen eighty four. “This is how the Romans built drains,” he said. His hands were leathery and he smelled like history. I smelled it again in the Cathedral at Rouen. They too were our people. He handled a large rectangular cuboid shaped stone. An igneous [...]
