December 11, 2012 In Memoriam Fyodor Khitruk, 1917–2012 By Sadie Stein The pioneering Russian animator Fyodor Khitruk has died at age ninety-five. Perhaps best known for his adaptations of A. A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh stories, Khitru’s work was often political and avant-garde. 1973’s Island, below, won the Palme d’Or for best short.
December 11, 2012 First Person Hear That Lonesome Gasket Blow: Part 1 By Evan James In the aisle of the Boeing 737 sardine tin, a wild-eyed, whiskered man—late twenties—held up the smooth flow of Seattle-bound passengers with frantic attempts to stow his carry-on. The impedimenta in question seemed to yours truly a destination-appropriate one: secured to his bulging backpack with yards of duct tape, a skateboard jutted. As he stooped to unwrap the thing, provoking more than a few pursed lips from the jammed queue, he bickered with the flight attendant. “Can’t I just keep it in my lap?” “If you can’t fit it in the overhead compartment, you’ll have to check it plane-side.” Read More
December 11, 2012 On the Shelf Papa’s Cats, and Other News By Sadie Stein A judge has ruled that the (often) six-toed cats who roam the Key West Hemingway House (many direct descendants of Papa’s animals) must be regulated. “The Snowman is not really about Christmas, it’s about death.” Oh. Eloise Klein Healy is the first Los Angeles Poet Laureate. “You have to be lonely to be a writer.” An interview with Edna O’Brien. “Crafted by local artisans in their fair trade workshop in Chennai, the books are hand-bound and each page is painstakingly screen-printed by hand using traditional Indian dyes, whose fresh earthy scent gently oozes from the gorgeous pages of the finished book.” Watch the making of something beautiful.
December 10, 2012 Contests Brave New Turkeys: We Have a Winner! By The Paris Review For our most recent contest, we asked you, dear readers, to create a festive, possibly dystopian, turkey from Aldous Huxley’s handprint. You delivered. Below, without further ado, our favorites. Read More
December 10, 2012 Arts & Culture Free Verses By Dorian Rolston The online forum was empty when I submitted the essay, my first for Modern & Contemporary American Poetry. It was still early—a few minutes before the midnight deadline, when peer evaluators would then be assigned to post feedback. But not knowing who that peer might be, nor how their public evaluation might portray my work, made the quiet unsettling. Expectant, I awaited review on this naked, vertiginous stage. Our assignment for ModPo, as this Coursera version is known, was to close read the Emily Dickinson poem identified by its paradoxical opening line, “I taste a liquor never brewed.” In the poem, ubiquitous intoxicants are absorbed literally out of the moisture in the air. They unhinge our debauched speaker, who before long is “Reeling—thro endless summer days—From inns of Molten Blue.” Describing the scene I invoked soaked clouds crossing the summer sky, befitting a heavy drunken stupor. “Clouded,” I titled the essay. Read More
December 10, 2012 The Print Series Willem de Kooning, Untitled, 1970 By The Paris Review Since 1964 The Paris Review has commissioned a series of prints and posters by major contemporary artists. Contributing artists have included Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Louise Bourgeois, Ed Ruscha, and William Bailey. Each print is published in an edition of sixty to two hundred, most of them signed and numbered by the artist. All have been made especially and exclusively for The Paris Review. Many are still available for purchase. Proceeds go to The Paris Review Foundation, established in 2000 to support The Paris Review.