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Violent crime dropped significantly in 2025. Why doesn’t it feel that way?
Despite being seemingly-full of high-profile mass shootings and public tragedies, experts say homicide deaths were down almost 20%. Content warning: discussions of mass violence, recounting of traumatic events I think many people would agree that 2025 has been a terrible year. For me personally, it’s been excessively hard to transition out of an MFA program, Continue reading
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The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro
You can order the book and determine for yourself if it’s worth the hype here. Image Credit: Penguin Random House. Being a raging nonconformist, I’m immediately skeptical of anything that has accrued heaps and heaps of praise. I went tentatively into Jesus’ Son after reading the 10+ rave reviews in the front cover of my Continue reading
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feeld by Jos Charles
Find the award-winning collection here. Image credit: Milkweed Editions Somehow the unique spelling and language Jos Charles uses throughout feeld is capable of alluding to so many different influences at once while also being completely singular. When I look at the words on these pages, I think of so many things: Chaucerian English, as the Continue reading
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I Know Your Kind by William Brewer
Image credit: Milkweed Editions I have mixed feelings about this poetry collection. On one hand, it addresses a hugely consequential yet underrepresented issue in our society by speaking plainly about opioid addiction. It was selected by Ada Límon, who I, of course, respect deeply. The book has a succinct coldness represented both formally and by Continue reading
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Chinatown (1974), a Neo-Noir Masterpiece
Chinatown (1974) is an impressive ode to the original film noir cycle, beautifully recreating the aura and inscrutability of the original black-and-whites while adding visual, thematic, and linguistic ‘color.’ The collapse of the Motion Picture Production Code and the drastically different social climate of the latter 20th-century enabled Chinatown to go where previous noir films Continue reading
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The Poetics of DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi
How Don Mee Choi uses docupoetics to explore the Korean War and how it overshadowed South Korea’s own struggle with authoritarianism. War is a paradox. It is incomprehensible, yet the little understanding the general public has of it is that it is the most disastrous and depraved of all human interactions. As civilians, we’ve adopted Continue reading
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Breaking the Film Noir Mold, and the Viewer: The Killer Inside Me (2010)
Casey Affleck’s portrayal of Lou Ford in The Killer Inside Me (2010) is brilliant and cold. Something about his cheeks and upper lip simultaneously portray a stunning evil and nothing at all. That is what makes him an unusual noir leading man— he is never befuddled, never two things at once (cynical and kind, for Continue reading
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The Peculiar Eeriness of Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Like all film noir, death is a central aspect of the plot of Sunset Boulevard (1950). We begin with the dead man in the pool, Norma Desmond and Gillis’ first meeting involves a deceased chimp, Norma herself sleeps in an elaborate boat-shaped bed with high walls and satiny coverings, highly evoking a coffin. This is Continue reading
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Gun Crazy (1950) and its twist on the Femme Fatale
Laurie from Gun Crazy (1950) can easily slip into the mold of femme fatale, joining many other noir women who exude beauty and danger. Laurie, in fact, fills the mold completely; she does not become a femme fatale through the events of the film, she is not revealed to have secretly been a femme fatale Continue reading
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The 4th of July
Yesterday marked one of the worst Independence Days I’ve ever experienced. And that’s coming from someone who hasn’t said the Pledge of Allegiance or stood for the National Anthem in years; it’s not exactly like I have high hopes for this self-congratulatory cesspool of a holiday. I wouldn’t say this is objectively the worst Independence Continue reading
