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“New York Love Stories” on the Criterion Channel

Charis Caputo

Courtesy of the Criterion Channel. Joan Micklin Silver’s romantic comedy Crossing Delancey (1988) opens in a dimly lit bookstore on the Upper East Side. “They want to pull us down and make something clean and tall and obscenely profitable arise out of our ashes,” the bookstore’s owner tells a group of literary luminaries assembled for a fundraiser. “But we are here! . . . New York’s last real bookstore will be around for a good

On the Sixtieth Anniversary of Agnès Varda’s “Le bonheur”

Meg Whiteford

A still from Le bonheur (1965). In the summer in New York City, every bodega you pass sells flowers, and every bodega selling flowers sells sunflowers, which do look a lot like the sun as a child might draw the sun: with distinct triangular rays and a smiling brown face in the center. Sixty years ago, Agnès Varda opened her film Le bonheur with an image of a sunflower, a florist’s symbol of loyalty. Did

How Liz Wallace’s “The Rule” Became Alison’s “Bechdel Test”

Mary-Kate Wilson

The Bechdel Test has become shorthand, a feminist seal of approval for movie goers who care about broadening roles for broads. Alison Bechdel’s papers at Smith College’s women’s history collection offer a fascinating glimpse into her creative process making Dykes to Watch Out For, including an installment in 1986 titled “The Rule” that spawned her most far-reaching contribution to culture. Bechdel’s first drafts tended to be notes scrawled on a storyboard, no images yet, with

Sandwiches

Pat Lipsky

Many times, on studio visits to friends, when I didn’t entirely love the work,I would exclaim, “Beautiful loft.” After, when we had left the neighborhood forever and life had become quiet and difficult, I thought about the parties. Every day in SoHo was the same: you worked, drank, stayed up late. Weekends didn’t matter. So parties came on Tuesday or Thursday, after openings. The whole pregame ritual of it—pulling on jeans and a sweater, doing

“The art of becoming”

Diem Okoye

At six, I wanted to be a bird.At twelve, invisible.At twenty, someone else—anyone else. Now, finally,I’m learning the slow alchemyof inhabiting this skin,this particular collectionof scars and stories.How strange that it takeshalf a lifetime to arriveat your own door,to knock and be answeredby the person you’ve beenbecoming all along.Some metamorphoseshappen in reverse:the butterfly returnsto essential form,finds the chrysaliswas always optional . . . Subscriber Access Required This article is available to paid subscribers with digital

“Ash November” & “Minimalism”

Alissa Quart

Ash November They are saying AI is a poet now, that you are ashes now. That the drink killed you. They are saying that the “working class” has united against itself.I am taking this personally. The poor have “decision fatigue” and now we all do, unfortunate revision of solidarity. You dodged this by dying, soft hair pressed to the pillow, now: the Worldwide Wrestling Regime. Like a cartoon dog hit on the head with a

“Apprehension,” “Admission” & “Would Have”

Hilde Weisert

Apprehension How can what I know nowthat came as a shock thenfeel like a secret I kept from you?How can my knowing, nowthat I would wake up and youwould not, feel like I amkeeping it from you still?Is it because of time, what happens to timewhen one heart stops and one heartgoes on? Is it because it will always be the night before,and I will always know how it will end? Admission You die, and

Words Fail: An Interview with JinJin Xu

Charis Caputo

JinJin Xu. What Would You Hear If You Could? #8: Against This Earth, We Knock. Site-specific installation. Old pots (collected in JiangYong), coal ashes (collected in JiangYong), resin, mechanical installation, 2024. Photo courtesy of How Art Museum. Since 2017 JinJin Xu’s head has been full of voices. What the voices are saying is impossible to summarize. Here are some fragments: I tried to feel this is my home.I don’t think I am a foreigner.I hope she’s

Thoughts on the Long Road to Regaining Abortion Rights

Jennifer Baumgardner

On June 26, 2024, a group of feminists whose work focuses on all things reproductive gathered to begin strategizing for the long term about how to regain the rights lost by the Dobbs decision. Our group ranged in age from seventeen to seventy-eight and included a journalist, a playwright, three actors, a novelist, two lawyers, a doctor, and the founder of a women’s health clinic. We started the meeting with a scene from Rose of

“Gloves” and “Scouring Pad”

Evangeline Riddiford Graham

Gloves In another century he gives her a pair of chicken skin gloves. Chicken skin gloves, dark cream from the top of the bottle, worn so close the ripples of her cuticles show through—fine gloves, rolled up inside a walnut shell and carried with a ribbon. Chicken skin gloves. Draped over a mouth, they soften a beard, take the bristle out of a goodnight kiss. How’s this? Wear them to bed, your hands age free

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