Here’s everything you’ve ever wanted to know about the communion wafer’s place in free-market capitalism.
From Flesh to Wafer to Cash
The Via Crucis of the Book
“All of a sudden, things that should be banal, like a person’s face—the fact that a person has a face—becomes extremely disorienting. In these moments, I think it’s important to keep those strange commas.” In an illuminating interview for Asymptote, Year in Reading alumna Katrina Dodson talks about the thrills and challenges in translating The Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector. Pair with Magdalena Edwards’s Millions review of the collection.
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Comparing a Fajita to a Summer’s Day
I’ve written before about the excellently titled series Novelists in Restaurants Eating Food. It lets some of our foremost literary minds reflect on places like Fallon and Byrne and Buffalo Wild Wings. Now, Millions contributor Laura van den Berg writes about Cafe Azteca in Lawrence, MA, where they make shrimp fajitas that inspire mouth-watering daydreams. Sample quote: “Love of food can be love’s most sincere form—especially when avocados are involved.”
Critical Texts
Louis Menand writes about why the women’s movement needed The Feminine Mystique (despite its shortcomings). You could also read a review of Rebecca Jo Plant’s Mom, which looks to The Feminine Mystique to understand why our culture blames mothers.
Cost of the Memoir
“My parents really don’t like that book. It embarrassed and saddened them and they didn’t understand why I would air my dirty laundry in public. They’ve had some time to sit with it and now they’re more supportive of what I do as a memoirist. I think they see the value of telling your story now. It’s still a tender subject and I wouldn’t say that they exactly love the book now, but at least it’s an open dialogue.” Jillian Lauren speaks on the cost of telling one’s truth publicly and her memoir Some Girls: My Life in a Harem. Pair with a piece by our own Michael Bourne on the art and business of memoirs.
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Dabbling in Cliché
“As you can see here, it’s all about desire and longing.” Yes it is, Ragnar, yes it is. Icelandic performance artist Ragnar Kjartansson is fascinated by what he calls “the oppressiveness of western culture claustrophobia.” His newest work, Bonjour, has shifted focus to poke fun at the ways in which the rest of the world elevates French sensibilities.
“Reflections on Gandhi”
Looks like George Orwell’s birthplace is going to be turned into a memorial – but to a different writer and activist. The land will be dedicated to Gandhi, who Orwell wrote about in his 1949 essay “Reflections on Gandhi.”
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