Category
Essays
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Law, Written in Spray Paint
“Paying attention to the temporary markings etched onto the asphalt, we are afforded a glimpse into the otherwise hidden world that lies below the city’s surface.”
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What Sign of the MTA Elevator Zodiac Are You?
Aries: 161st Street. You offer all the highlights of the city in one Bronx experience, Aries. Your station-side door slides shut with the rattle of the Lower East Side’s metal security gates, and your groaning whirr …
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Saguaro Sketchbook
This is the latest installment of El Mirador, an ongoing series curated by Francisco Cantú. Spanish for “the lookout point,” El Mirador collects original nonfiction, translation, and visual art on the American West, the US/Mexico borderlands, and Indian Country. Tucson, Arizona-based artist Danny Martin is known regionally for large-format Dia de los Muertos inspired murals and mixed media projects, as well…
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Dad’s Dictionary
My father has a refrain for when he overhears one of us, his three children, make a grammatical mistake. “You speak exactly one language, so speak it correctly!” My father grew up in a formerly French territory in South India, so he spoke Tamil at home, was educated in English, learned French in school, picked…
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On The Horizon
“On The Horizon” is a new quarterly feature from Public Books that looks forward to the coming season’s notable events—literary and artistic, intellectual and pop-cultural—in and around New York City. FILM & TELEVISION Film About Elly at Film Forum, April 8–21 From director Asghar Farhadi comes this mystery-thriller, set among a group of Iranian college…
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On Pansodan Road: The Second-Hand Books of Yangon
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. Some names in this piece have been changed to protect privacy. It’s a Sunday morning, and the light first falls on the squatters who have built their homes on the roof of the colonial telegraph building, an edifice…
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The Best of 2015
It’s finally spring and we’ve settled comfortably in 2015’s controversies and think pieces, its soundtrack and landscape, its must-sees and many of its premieres and releases. But never fear: There is still so much to live through the year for. Here’s some of the best of what’s come and what still awaits us. Nate Marshall’s…
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What’s it Like to Bike that Pike? Nashville’s Hillsboro Pike
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. Although it traverses many hills, Hillsboro Pike is actually named after Hillsborough, North Carolina, the lifelong home of Nashville’s namesake Francis Nash. Hillsborough, North Carolina, is also hilly, but it was actually named after Sir Wills Hill, aka…
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Not an Owl, Crow, or Coyote Be: The Navajo Creation Narrative for Day and Night
There was a string of muffled knocks at the front door. It was a few minutes past 11:00, during the fullest moon and coldest night of January. The temperature was 12 degrees and falling …
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The History and Philosophy of Adventure
We often think of adventure—it’s hard to avoid, saturated as the culture is with film, television, and books that place it at their center. But what adventure is, what it means to pursue it, and what its pursuit means to us have all changed significantly over time. In these two essays, which we publish in…
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Laughing with ISIS in Nablus
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. An American walks into a shawarma shop in Nablus. The man behind the counter, renowned locally for his humorless demeanor and foul mood swings, makes an uncharacteristic attempt at a joke. Sharpening a knife and with a grin…
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Papa Can’t Buy You A Brand New Earth
In the lullaby “Hush Little Baby,” a singer tries to quiet a child by promising to give her a slew of new things. “Papa’s gonna buy you a mocking bird,” she croons, “And if that mocking bird don’t sing / Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” The transaction is desperate. Rewards are offered, and…
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Richard Blanco Comes Home
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. Richard Blanco is living through a moment that few writers—and far fewer poets—ever get to experience. Tapped by the White House to be only the fifth Inaugural Poet in US history, he has achieved a rare level of…
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Weekend Reading: Memory Lane
One day we won’t be covered in snow. But not just yet, it seems. While we wait, here’s your weekend reading. NBC’s Brian Williams has found himself in hot water over his account of being shot at while flying in a helicopter in Iraq in 2003, which, apparently, never happened. That, in turn, has brought…
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Why Is Drug Use Forbidden?
If the 20th was the century of the prohibition of drugs, the 21st has every chance to be the century of their liberation. An increasing number of initiatives—state, national, and international—have legalized or are trying to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Colorado and Washington have, already, authorized its sale in specialized stores, and Alaska,…
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Wellington’s Cuba Street: On the Restless Taniwha
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. You can’t, it is said, beat Wellington on a good day. Those days come in January, in the height of the New Zealand summer. The wind softens to a breeze, silver sunlight floods the jade hills that surround…
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Paris Streets, January 11, 2015
An estimated 3.7 million people rallied across France this past Sunday, January 11th. Roughly 1.6 million marchers were in Paris, where the Charlie Hebdo murders occurred. Friends report that the route was so impossibly crowded that people spread into nearby streets to create a slow river moving from Place de la Republique to Place de…
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Weekend Reading: Laughter in the Dark
2015 has gotten off to an unnerving start, to say the least. The week has been dominated by the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the subsequent standoffs, and the bombing at a Colorado NAACP office, both of which (the former much more so than the latter, more on that later) have sparked a lot of…
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A Matriarch in Exile
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. The Matriarch—it would be impolite to utter or print her given name—is from the town of Dina in Punjab, Pakistan. She lives in Jackson Heights. Punjabi is her only language. She has been in exile, she says, for…
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Sketches of Spain 2: A Simple Life in Salamanca
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. “Go to Salamanca!” The open mic at El Rastrel—a vegetarian tapas bar in Salamanca, Spain—is so crowded that some of the spectators are standing on the stage. People pack the vestibule and the stairs that lead to the…
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Sketches of Spain 1: A Vegan Bunny in Barcelona
This is the latest installment of Public Streets, a biweekly urban observations series curated by Ellis Avery. Via Laietana, one of the biggest streets in Barcelona, a city where making or participating in grafitti warrants a 2,000 Euro fine, runs all the way to the sea. Just the other night, several young people dressed in…
