March 18, 2022 Melting Clocks Walk Worthy By Eloghosa Osunde In Eloghosa Osunde’s column Melting Clocks, she takes apart the surreality of time and the senses. Artwork by Eloghosa Osunde. Back then, one of my favorite leashes to use on myself was a Scripture from Ephesians 4:1. Paul wrote: “Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.” I loved his words there because they spoke to something already on the inside of me: a sturdy addiction to a set standard, height marks on the wall. There was something in me already easily seduced by the faith other people put in me, because to be believed in is to have the best of oneself amplified, and what could be better than that in terms of fortifying one’s right to a body, right to a life? So there was me, always—on the way to class, in the shower, on the bus, in my room, in my sleep—reciting it to myself, confessing it over and over in my head: Walk worthy. Walk worthy. Walk worthy. Read More
March 18, 2022 The Review’s Review Parables and Diaries By The Paris Review Viktoras Kapočius, Jonas Mekas visiting Biržai, Lithuania, 1971, licensed under CC BY 4.0. On a recent hungover Sunday, I agreed to meet an old college friend uptown at the Jewish Museum to see their installation “Jonas Mekas: The Camera Was Always Running.” Trying not to betray my impairment, I sat down with relief in the black-box room, ready for the cameras to roll. After all, the movies have always been a refuge for the weary—for when you’d still like to feel something but you can barely move. Across a rough semicircle of twelve screens, Mekas’s intimate, nearly five-hour epic of his personal life, As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty, flooded the darkness. Each screen was devoted to a different segment of the film, creating an anarchic jumble of sound and image: Central Park picnics, Cape Cod swimming, a cabin in the green woods, flowers in the breeze, the waves of the sea, grass, Mekas playing the accordion, wine and dinners, the city in the snow. Letting it all wash over me, I felt moved, and restored to the fullness of experience. Read More
March 17, 2022 The Moon in Full Worm Moon By Nina MacLaughlin In her monthly column The Moon in Full, Nina MacLaughlin illuminates humanity’s long-standing lunar fascination. Each installment is published in advance of the full moon. VINTERNATT BY NIKOLAI ASTRUP, LICENSED UNDER CC BY SA 4.0. What is the moon? The moon is a natural satellite, and it reflects the light of the sun. The moon is 4.5 billion years old. The moon is, on average, 240,000 miles away from this Earth. The moon is the fifth largest of the 210 that swing around the planets in this solar system, and the second densest, after Jupiter’s moon Io. The moon is made of iron and nickel at its heavy metal core; lighter crystals of solidified lava, like olivine and pyroxene, make up its mantle; and the lunar soil that makes up the surface crust is an even lighter mix of minerals and metals known as regolith, including anorthositic plagioclase feldspar, dusty and granular. Leave a footprint in it. The moon would be 73.5 million metric tons if it were placed on a bathroom scale on this earth. The moon is whisking at an average orbit velocity of almost 2,300 miles per hour. The moon is 6,800 miles around at its equator, and would that there were a hole big enough, about 50 moons could fit inside this Earth. The moon is the only non-Earth place human feet have stepped, and it has felt the weight of 12 bodies on its surface. O geometry of light. Read More
March 16, 2022 History A Memorial for Those Accused of Witchcraft By Olga Ravn Colors extracted, using a traditional recipe, from maritime sunburst lichen the author collected from the wildlife corridor along Ellebækstien in Køge. Fabrics from left to right, top to bottom: handwoven tussah and mulberry silk, wool, silk charmeuse, silk-rayon velvet, cotton, and linen. Photograph by Johan Rosenmunthe. A LOGBOOK TO REMEMBER 16 WOMEN OF WHOM 13 WERE BURNED ALIVE, TWO COMMITTED SUICIDE, AND ONE MANAGED TO ESCAPE, 1612–1615 AND 2021, REWRITTEN, GATHERED, DREAMED BY A WOMAN, AGE 34, THAT’S TO SAY ME, A STAR AMONG ALL THESE RESPIRING STARS WE CALL PEOPLE Johanne Tommesis, burned, August 24, 1612 Kirstine Lauridsdatter, burned, September 11, 1612 Mette Banghors, burned, December 7, 1612 Volborg Bødkers, escaped and convicted in absentia, June 7, 1613 Annike Christoffersdatter, burned, June 14, 1613 Anne Olufs, burned, June 26, 1613 Karen Eriks, suicide in prison, August 30, 1613 Maren Muremester, burned, 1613 Maren of Ringsbjerg, burned, 1613 Maren Bysvende, suicide in her well after receiving a summons to appear in court, 1613 Kirsten Væverkvinde, burned, 1613 Birgitte Rokkemager, burned, September 18, 1615 Else Holtug, burned, November 6, 1615 Mette Navns, burned, 1615 Johanne Muremester, burned, 1615 Magdalene, Søren Skrædder’s wife, burned, 1615 WHERE: Køge, Denmark Read More
March 15, 2022 A Letter from the Editor Announcing Our Spring Issue By Emily Stokes Five days before the Spring issue went to press, I found myself perched on a sofa in the Review’s Chelsea office, listening as Jamaica Kincaid and Darryl Pinckney put the finishing touches on a conversation they’d begun eight years earlier. By then, my colleagues and I had pored over hundreds of pages of transcripts for Kincaid’s Art of Fiction interview, and yet, that Monday afternoon, as the two writers went back over the stories she’d told him about her childhood on Antigua, her adventures as a young journalist in seventies New York, and her life as a writer, new details kept emerging. She was a backup singer in Holly Woodlawn’s band before being replaced by Debbie Harry? She drafted Annie John out loud in the bath while pregnant with her first child? Read More
March 15, 2022 Redux Redux: Vulnerable to an Epiphany By The Paris Review Every week, the editors of The Paris Review lift the paywall on a selection of interviews, stories, poems, and more from the magazine’s archive. You can have these unlocked pieces delivered straight to your inbox every Sunday by signing up for the Redux newsletter. Each year, the Plimpton Prize for Fiction celebrates the work of an exceptional new writer appearing in the Review. In honor of this year’s winner, Chetna Maroo, we’re lifting the paywall on four previous recipients of the award, from the very first—Marcia Guthridge, for her story “Bones,” from issue no. 128 (Fall 1993)—to last year’s, Eloghosa Osunde, for “Good Boy,” from issue no. 234 (Fall 2020). If you enjoy these free stories, why not subscribe to The Paris Review? You’ll get four new issues of the quarterly delivered straight to your door. PROSE Bones Marcia Guthridge It is clear now that things were not quite normal with me. I was vulnerable to an epiphany. I needed a place to stand. From issue no. 128 (Fall 1993) Read More