Category Archives: Culture

@The Movies with PopPop: I Am Not Your Negro

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

James Baldwin, one of the mid-20th centuries best writers and speakers – some might insist on an “arguably” in there, but I’ll take my chances! – is often overlooked or at least under appreciated as an interpreter and prophet of … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Homegoing (2016) belongs to an honored tradition of African-American fiction, a generation by generation narrative tracing a family’s life from a moment a few centuries distant in West Africa, through the horrors of capture and slavery (and often encompassing moments of … Continue reading →

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@The Movies with PopPop: The Hero

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

The Hero, a 2017 film directed by Brett Haley, is a surprisingly strong, leisurely, contemplative and elegiac film that seems made for, and is made by Sam Elliott. He plays Lee Hayden, an actor in his 70’s, famous for one … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: This Census Taker by China Miéville

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

China Miéville is probably my favorite author of the twenty-first century, and when I saw that he recently released not one, but two new books, I was both excited and a little hesitant. Miéville had a run–from 1998’s King Rat through the … Continue reading →

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@The Movies with PopPop: Seymour: An Introduction

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Seymour: An Introduction (no, not the Salinger short story of the same name, but a 2014 film directed by Ethan Hawke) is an extraordinary documentary that will charm and fascinate anyone who has either played or tried to play an … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Posted on June 11, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Published in 2016, Colson Whitehead‘s The Underground Railroad is a very hot property: best seller, Oprah Book Club selection, and extraordinarily topical. It’s not quite a work of historical fiction, but it’s not far off: the novel traces the story of an … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter

Posted on June 2, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

When James Salter‘s A Sport and a Pastime was published in 1967, it was immediately subject to an ongoing debate about pornography (and it does have a series of fairly explicit scenes, even by today’s standards). That did not prevent it from being … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees

Posted on May 24, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Helen Mirrlees‘ Lud-in-the-Mist (1926) is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, probably not unrelated to Neil Gaiman’s effusive praise for it. It was never truly lost, but was hailed as an “unappreciated classic” for decades, undergoing surges of popularity and “rediscovery” … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Shadow & Claw by Gene Wolfe

Posted on May 12, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Shadow & Claw (1983) by Gene Wolfe is a little complicated in form: it contains two novels–The Shadow of the Torturer (1980) and The Claw of the Conciliator (1981)–which themselves comprise the first half of a series known as The Book of the … Continue reading →

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Reading Well: Horns by Joe Hill

Posted on April 30, 2017 by Daniel (@MKNN)

Horns is a taut novel that, while strongly supernatural, stops short of being a work of horror. The premise is relatively simple: one day, the protagonist wakes up having grown horns which, among other effects, make others reveal their darkest … Continue reading →

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