out tomorrow (May 28)
Archives for May 2021
The Beautiful and the Damned: Yelena Moskovich’s A Door Behind A Door
Reviewed by John Biscello
A Door Behind A Door
by Yelena Moskovich
Two Dollar Radio, 188 pp., $16.99
In the afterlife
You could be headed for the serious strife
Now you make the scene all day
But tomorrow there’ll be Hell to pay
—The Squirrel Nut Zippers, “Hell”
Look out there. In the distance, toward the horizon. Can you see it? More importantly, can you feel it? A solitary rowboat adrift at sea, the waves like scallop-fringed wraiths from a Japanese woodblock beginning to gather around it, and the individual in that boat, brave and terrified and lost and found all at once, continues what has been called the “awful rowing toward God.” Here, now, comes the soundtrack, as if the silver linings in clouds host angels porcelain voices: Row row row your boat / Gently down the stream / Merrily merrily merrily merrily / Life is a but a dream. Or nightmare. Track #2 is is the remix of another cheery children’s tune: The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round…. Will the wheels ever stop? What kind of bus is this? Is there a way to get off? Where is it going, really? And the bus driver, with the missing eye and wax-slicked moustache and non-existent lips, why doesn’t he ever say a word? Just leers into the rearview from time to time, where you can’t tell if his one good eye is full of malice or mischief or both. These, and other liminally hazardous forms of travel, constitute the transit inner-verse as constructed by Yelena Moskovich. [Read more…]
Radical Black Dignity and the Shared Revolutionary Paths of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
Reviewed by Brandon M. Terry
The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
by Peniel E. Joseph
Basic Books, 384 pp., $18.99
NYRB
Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X met only once, at the US Capitol during the Senate debate over the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That chance encounter was immortalized in a photograph that shows the two men shaking hands and smiling but reveals little trace of the public feud that has linked them in our historical imagination. Their conflict has cast arguably the longest shadow over African-American politics and the struggle for racial justice of any contretemps since the one between W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington at the turn of the twentieth century. [Read more…]
A Quiet Place Part II Delivers Everything You’d Want For This Horror Sequel
Reviewed by Kristy Puchko
A Quiet Place was one of the most exhilarating cinematic experiences of the last decade, unfurling a unique vision of horror that weaponized audience screams against them. Often when watching a scary movie, a good scream can release the tension that’s brewing as your spine tingles. However, while watching this 2018 monster tale in which a single peep could get you ripped into ribbons, a scream unleashed only made viewers feel more unnerved. This clever device paired with a stellar cast made John Krasinski’s horror offering a twisted crowd-pleaser and a smashing success. Three years later, he’s back with his co-writers and cast for A Quiet Place Part II, a supremely scary and satisfying sequel. [Read more…]
The Linda Lindas, Live at the LA Public Library
“Racist, Sexist Boy”
Aidan Salakhova’s The Dust Became The Breath
at Gazelli Art House, London (through 6 June 2021)
Reviewed by Niccy Hallifax
Walking into a London gallery again after a year of restrictions and lock-downs was strange but uplifting for the soul. More uplifting still was seeing an artist I have long admired, ever since I saw her work at the Saatchi gallery many years before. The Dust Became The Breath, at Gazelli Art House, is a solo exhibition for Aidan Salakhova, the prominent Azeri artist. [Read more…]