“Tight” is a word with some significant ambiguity in modern usage. It can mean drunk, cheap, fit, cool, calm, close, angry, well-rehearsed, cautious, or secretive… For my money, and I’m cheap, “tight” is as rich a word as circulates in modern American English. It has a long and international history of ambiguity bringing it... »

When I read 1984 for the first time I remember thinking that the notion of newspeak was supposed to be terrifying.  The ultimate capitalization of language: say the same thing faster and with less space.  But now that newspeak exists (it’s ttly all about txtng nd sending msgs tht dnt tk up too much... »

Hell in the Pacific (1968) stars Lee Marvin, Toshiro Mifune, and no one else.  Literally.  Directed by John Boorman with cinematography by Conrad Hall, the story follows an American pilot and a Japanese naval officer as they fight against the hatred instilled in their respective countries by the war.  While stranded together on a... »

I. To Hell With It Coming from a religious background largely influenced by Buddhism in recent years, the concept of an eternal hell has been, for me, one of the most difficult to swallow during my recent return to my childhood Christian faith (albeit via the Eastern Orthodox Church, rather than the Catholic Church I... »

Archie Bell and the Drells’ 1968 hit “Tighten Up” is one of a long line of American popular songs built around a dance. There are few lyrics beyond Bell’s cajoling the band and the dancers (you!).  He does claim at the beginning of the song that “we dance just about as good as we... »

My first favorite book was Roald Dahl’s The Witches. The children’s classic is about a precocious little boy with an even more intriguing grandmother who schools him in the ways of witch-detection. Dahl’s witches are part of a far-reaching international cartel with the solitary aim of subjecting unsuspecting children to their evil powers. They... »

This is going to seem like too great a stretch, but there is a very real connection between the New Orleans Saints, the Stoics of Ancient Greece, and Nina Simone. What brings them together? Compassion. Nina Simone’s short hymnal “Compassion” is actually Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Compensation” set to music. Dunbar also wrote a vaudeville song... »

We have results! For the logo competition we’ve been blathering about for the last month or so. Please admire. What follows is a list IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER of the logos we received. We would like you to admire them, comment on them, hold them, love them, and decide amongst yourselves. We will be... »

Let me fall into the broken waves of your absence, twisted in the soft wings of your malignant ships.. as they sail in the frozen crystals that cover my eyelashes.. gently crashing. your memory, rusting the endless tunnels of my mouth.. shaping slow breaths into my dead lungs. i’ve been waiting for a taste; the death of your neglect. a wreckage of... »

Vladimir Mayakovsky is perhaps best known nowadays in the U.S. for two things: First, he “taught” Frank O’Hara to speak to the sun. The conceit of O’Hara’s great poem “A True Account of Talking to the Sun on Fire Island” is borrowed from Mayakovsky’s “An Extraordinary Adventure Which Befell Vladimir Mayakovsky in a Summer... »

The only thing that performance studies scholars can agree on when they talk about performance seems to be that “performance” is an essentially contested concept.  The fact that we can call just about any action a performance can lead to some pretty stupid conversations.  Are you performing when you’re asleep?  Who gives a flying... »