I used to think the Cloud was in the sky, Something invisible, subtle, aloft: We sent things up to it, or pulled things down On silken ribbons, on backwards lightning zaps. Our photographs, our songs, our avatars Floated with rainbows, sunbeams, snowflakes, rain. Thoughts crossed mid-air, and messages, all soft And winking, in the night,…
I still remember the summer we were becalmed: No breezes rose. The dandelion clock Stopped mid-puff. The clouds stood in dry dock. Like butterflies, formaldehyde embalmed, Spring kites lay spread out on the floor, starched flat. Trees kept their council, grasses stood up straight Like straight pins in a cushion, the wonky gate That…
Matthew, 2.7-12 Summoned to the palace, we obeyed. The king was curious. He had heard tell Of strangers in outlandish garb, who paid In gold, although they had no wares to sell. He dabbled in astrology and dreams: Could we explain the genesis of a star? The parallax of paradox — afar The fragrance of…
Last spring, in The New Statesman, Samuel Moyn reviewed Revolutionary Spring, Christopher Clark’s massive new history of the revolutions of 1848. Like most everything Moyn writes, the review was witty, insightful, and provocative — another illustration of why Moyn has become one of the most important left intellectuals in the United States today. One thing…
When you log into ChatGPT, the world’s most famous AI chatbot offers a warning that it “may occasionally generate incorrect information,” particularly about events that have taken place since 2021. The disclaimer is repeated in a legalistic notice under the search bar: “ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts.” Indeed, when OpenAI’s…
It was probably OK for the environment? It wasn’t the worst. The kids, then four years old, had the wrought-iron fireplace tools (you question my judgment) and were using them to break up a rotting log at the edge of the forest. In rhythm with the falling of the poker, they chanted “This stump must…
“In all ages of speculation, one of the strongest obstacles to the reception of the doctrine that Utility or Happiness is the criterion of right and wrong, has been drawn from the idea of Justice.” This is from John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarianism, in 1861, perhaps the most renowned exposition of the ethical theory that stands…
The Franco-Tunisian Jewish writer and social philosopher Albert Memmi died in the spring of 2020, having lived a full century, at least a half of which he devoted to developing an arc of thought with great relevance to some of the most vexing questions now facing the societies of the Middle East, the region where…
Sometimes I think I must have ground to a halt on this lot for the sake of the orange tree alone. I might have preferred the olive — rolled on a bias — but it requires labor, refinement, salt. Oranges are easy: sweetness sewn inside a roughly perfect handhold. Fruit in different stages…
The resort staff are turning off the light at the poolside bar. The iron gate around the pool clanks shut loud enough to wake the kiddos whose sleep their mothers toiled to obtain. This Saturday night is uniquely music-less, the usual spate of sounds drowned out — rough and slick alike, proclivities and druthers….
I lost my grandmother’s opera glasses … an empire in thrall to innovations offered electric shocks in the Prater for a small charge. In wedding dresses, fräuleins dove from moving trains. Scions, following the Great Somnambulator, walked out of windows (into Blush Noisette!) or stepped off bridges in uniform. Thunderclouds amassed as if looking…
Hong Kong has its own Antigone and her name is Chow Hang-Tung. I had never heard of her until June 4, 2021. Every year from 1989 until the start of the pandemic, Hong Kong has commemorated the Tiananmen Massacre with a candlelight vigil at Victoria Park on June 4. Though attendance had been dwindling through…
