Another year, another Grammys at the mercy of its own critical missteps. Jay-Z, whose album “4:44” was a stunning late-career addition to a legendary rap oeuvre, was nominated for eight awards. He won none. SZA’s sophomore effort “Ctrl” earned her five nominations. She won none. In the wake of Sunday
Author: Will Gottsegen
For “Whomst” the Bell Tolls: A Personal Take on Etymology
Samuel Beckett wrote that “the forms are many in which the unchanging seeks relief from formlessness.” What is it, really, that we articulate through language? The forms of language are many, but each is underpinned by the same unchanging energy – that unshakable sense that there’s something more to say,
Do Dogs Know Death?
Earlier this week I interviewed Leland de la Durantaye, a professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College, about his dog – an Akita-Husky mix named Bear. Professor de la Durantaye’s most recent book is “Beckett’s Art of Mismaking.” In another sort of “art of mismaking,” Bear recently fought off two coyotes in Elysian
My First Pagan Sabbath: A Look at Montclair’s Witch and Druid Community
“Blessed be!” These were the words that greeted me and four friends as we walked into Montclair’s Unitarian Universalist Congregation on Friday, Oct. 13, for our first taste of the pagan “meat Sabbath.” The “meat Sabbath,” as we came to learn, is (in spite of its sinister name) the
The Sounds of Anxiety, One Year Later
Googling “the sound of anxiety” is a terribly unhelpful way to figure out what exactly the phrase means. Before long, you find yourself wandering through an array of links with titles like “The Sound of Anxiety (Scary Music!)” and the more heavy-handed “Anxiety Anticipating Scene Instrumental Background Horror Music.” These results
Meet Claremont’s Self-Proclaimed “Hentai King”
It was a cloudy Wednesday morning when I set out to meet the “Hentai King.” Walking from Pomona College to the parking lot near the intersection of Ninth and Amherst, I realized I knew almost nothing about the man I was about to meet. What I did know was that