Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 59
July 20, 2020
Reader’s Corner: John Lewis and Thomas Merton
On Bloody Sunday in 1965, the late civil rights icon John Lewis (who passed away last Friday) was marching with other voting-rights activists across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama when they were attacked by a mob of police and vigilantes. Many marchers were hospitalized, including Lewis, who suffered a fractured skull. Lewis had …
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July 19, 2020
Writer’s Desk: It’s All Material
A writer is someone who tells you one thing so someday he can tell his readers another thing: what he was thinking but declined to say, or what he would have thought had he been wiser. A writer turns his life into material, and if you’re in his life, he uses yours, too. Walter Kirn, …
July 16, 2020
Nota Bene: Country Music’s Status Quo
Why is country music having a moment during the pandemic? And how does it relate to the COVID-19 prevention backlash? Spencer Kornhaber has a theory: While pop tends to envision one big night where you transcend your boring condition, and hip-hop often touts material success turning an ordinary life into an extraordinary one, country fetishizes …
July 15, 2020
Reader’s Corner: Another Prize for Colson Whitehead
This must be some kind of record. But after winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Orwell award, Colson Whitehead (The Nickel Boys) was just awarded the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. In a statement, Whitehead said: I hope that right now there’s a young kid who looks like me, …
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July 12, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Write Like it Matters
This week, Harper’s published a piece from a list of writers ranging from J.K. Rowling to Malcolm Gladwell, Todd Gitlin, Dexter Filkins, and Dahlia Lithwick – as well as a range of other public intellectuals and artists (Zephyr Techout to Bill T. Jones and Gloria Steinem) – titled “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate.” …
July 7, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Truth’
In the latest family drama from Hirokazu Kore-eda (Shoplifters), Catherine Deneuve and Juliette Binoche play a battling mother and daughter whose versions of the past are dramatically different. The Truth is streaming now here. My review is at PopMatters: For Koreeda’s first non-Japanese movie, The Truth is not the sort of film that will likely introduce him …
July 6, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Pruitt-Igoe Myth’
Chad Freidrichs’ 2011 documentary The Pruitt-Igoe Myth challenged some long-unchallenged myths of the debate over public housing, not to mention the systemic racism embedded in some of the more infamous complexes, such as St. Louis’ Pruitt-Igoe (seen here being demolished in 1972). It is still an incredibly relevant piece of work. My article on The …
July 5, 2020
Writer’s Desk: Ignore Success
As a writer, one generally understands that your work is most likely going to be overlooked by the vast majority of humanity. That doesn’t mean you don’t hope for some vindication in the form of some nice reviews and maybe even a royalty check every now and again. But expecting any kind of reward like …
July 3, 2020
Screening Room: ‘The Old Guard’
Based on Greg Rucka’s comic-book series, The Old Guard is a big-budget attempt to start a new action franchise, this one centered around a band of centuries-old mercenaries who are (mostly) immortal. The Old Guard launches today on Netflix. My review is at Slant: Smartly prioritizing the bond of relationships over action in the way …
July 1, 2020
Nota Bene: Shirley Jackson and Lucille Ball
Via A.M. Homes’ introduction to Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery: When reading Jackson, I can’t help but think of the stories of Raymond Carver, who had a similar ability to create a sort of melancholy emotional mist that floats over his stories. But Jackson also had the ability to be savagely funny: at one point in …
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