Monthly Archives: October 2014

Found Objects

  I have never been so moved by a sink as I was with Robert Gober’s recreations of sinks. I was already in an ecstatic mood on the train. I was watching everything as if seeing my life pass before … Continue reading

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An Idea Masquerading as a Bookshop

I was standing happily in the little corner, flipping through a book of Huysman’s Against Nature, when the tour guide, a petite efficient woman, came through the door. A little bell tinkled, and the flock of tourists followed her to … Continue reading

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The Shock of the New

Yom Kippur comes once a year – if it came twice, we might fold up for good. But the dress rehearsal for death is a surprisingly supple notion, and the release back into life, the uplift, the ecstasy, is so … Continue reading

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Why We Love Sad Songs, or the Nol Kidre spirit

    It’s Yom Kippur. We are wearing white, wearing the kind of white shroud in which we’re buried. We’ve had no nourishment, no water, no sex. The body is withering. And when the Torah scrolls are removed from the … Continue reading

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