Up

If we respected only what is inevitable and has a right to be, music and poetry would resound along the streets. When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. This […]

Ascension

I was a solipsist, to the chagrin of an important boyfriend. I told him I wasn’t sure other people existed, he told me he was afraid I was a sociopath. How do you know, though? Barbara Ehrenreich, in Living With A Mad God, writes about being a solipsist until she was in her early twenties. […]

The Real Criminals

I was sitting on the train looking out the open doors to the platform, the doors were open, a woman took out a book without looking at it, a yellow paperback, and she held it up, upside-down, then she looked down, and she turned it around. The class I was in was about resurrection, and […]

Web

In the lobby, a plexiglass box with a theater light under it, petals open. In the box, a spiderweb. That was all. Black curtains, two sets, to go through, a sign that said, “Exhibit continues behind curtain,” because it is unclear in these Chelsea galleries where an exhibit might continue and where it might be […]