TOBI'S DESK

  Hair is a large part of the wonderment—and objection—Beyoncé courts each time she holds a mic. As the critic madison moore  writes  of her “haircrobatics” in 2014, hairography is “the special genius of Beyoncé’s stagecraft” and “punctuates everything else happening on stage: the lights, the dance moves, the glitter, the sequins, the music.” Hair for black cultures at large is often a vehicle for small acts of daring, for everyday articulations. But the newest iteration of the natural-hair movement does not welcome all black hair equally. The natural-hair revolution, a public-facing campaign corroborated by name-brand moisture treatments, the YouTube “hair journey,” and op-eds in the  New York Times , embraces the kinky, the nappy, and all manners of patterns and styles still dubbed “unruly” by the nonblack population—or so natural-hair enthusiasts claim. But the natural-hair movement puts forth a false consensus of what black representation should look like ...

Vladimir Nabokov.   As a capstone to National Poetry Month, we bring you a 1964 recording of Vladimir Nabokov at 92Y reading his poem “ The Ballad of Longwood Glen ,” which he describes as “a short poem I composed in Wyoming, which is one of my favorite states of existence, and it is also one of my favorite ballads.”   Nabokov was quite particular about pronunciations, particularly that of his own name. As Matt Levin, who spent long hours at the Morgan Library listening to the archival audio of our Writers at Work interviews for our podcast ,  wrote recently : The four-beat leitmotif that George Plimpton conjures out of the name Nabokov never fails to delight me in its voluptuousness—Nǝ (pause) Beau (pronunciation drawn out like an arch gossip columnist) Kavv (the fricative subtle, fading away like a comet tail). It corresponds perfectly to the wily quote that Nabokov himself gives about the pronunciation of his name—“My New England ear is not offended by the...

  Anna Zemankova, Untitled (second half of 1960s), pastel and ballpoint pen on paper Like most artists, Anna Zemánkova was encouraged, from a very young age, to pursue a more lucrative career. From the age of fifteen to eighteen she studied dentistry, and then worked as a dental technician until her marriage, when she forwent paid labor in order to care for her children. In 1948 she and her family moved to Prague, and when she found herself increasingly depressed, her son, a sculptor, implored her to pursue the creative work she had previously disavowed. Early in the morning, before anyone else arose, she’d sketch pastel and ink onto large swaths of paper, creating botanical dreamscapes all her own. As a self-taught artist, Zemánková tends to be described as Art Brut, but her Art Brut is of a mysterious and magical strain. She believed her inspiration was derived from a divine source: “I am growing flowers,” she said, “that are not grown anywhere else.”  Following a m...

1. I recently bought some Tupperware with a similar mindset to that of the people who prepare their sports clothes the night before so that exercising is not a decision but a given, as if the presence of the clothes outside the wardrobe were a catalyst for the body to take itself to the gym or yoga class. I wanted to make it easier and more appealing to cook more and pack my lunches instead of spending money on quick, unsatisfactory, plastic-packed meals in London’s many Prêt a Mangers. The presence of the new containers (so shiny, and with their matching lids still in sight) would motivate me, I thought. As if on cue, the same week, upon listening to a “pop culture” podcast, the presenters—two women in their early 30s—talked about how Tupperware is such a Millennial thing. A few days later, on distractedly glancing at the catacombs of an email thread forwarded by an editor, I discovered a pitch someone had made further down: “One foodie idea I had for the site was to do something on...

Choi Young-mi (left) and Ko Un (right) The accusation came in the form of a poem. 6 stanzas. 27 lines. Don’t sit next to En The poet ‘K’ advised me, a literary novice He touches young women whenever he sees one Choi Young-mi wrote the poem in Korean, her native tongue. It is a language that tends first to cool its emotions, then to assimilate them: unruly drama and dialogue, in their retelling, take on the muted affect of melancholy. This poem, largely unbroken by punctuation and carried by winding lines, swirls like a river. A handful of English characters litter the poem, and stand out like islands, insistent and unyielding. They are mostly names: ‘K’ who warns the young poet about, “En,” an older poet, some thirty-years her senior, who gropes the young poet and women like her. There is one English phrase too, isolated on its own line in the poem’s second stanza: “Me Too.” Forgot K’s advice and sat next to En Me too The silk blouse borrowed from my sister got rumpled ...

By the end of my first semester of a PhD in history, I was sure I was going to drop out. I felt out of place, as if I were a student who, for weeks, sat in on the wrong class and decided to play along, the inertia of a decision keeping me from finding the right place. I was—and am—a fiction writer with a deep and abiding interest in history, but I wasn’t sure if that was enough to keep me in a PhD program. I began graduate school as a writer. It was 2011 and I had published my first essay in The Awl and had written 50 pages of a novel. When I think about my decision to start a PhD in history, I’m reminded of the essays in MFA vs NYC . It turns out that PhD in NYC was a third option. It’s not a common path, but not unheard of either. Prior to publishing Open City , Teju Cole was in the art history program at my university. Why did I choose to enter graduate school in history? I’m still not sure. It was a fully-funded program, which meant that I was paid to spend my time in beautiful...

I am who I am, but some people call me black. They don’t just call me black, they also say I’m dirty and dark I do what others do; and I could even visit gutters in search of food When I do so, they call me a fool.. They know me by dirty rags, and … Continue reading They Say I Am Black and Bad → from NaijaStories.com https://ift.tt/2I1ecGU

Tell the moon not to complain, go to the sun and leave a note, We are not a broken piece of poetry campaigning for love and affections, we are crystals, lest you forget! clear rays penetrating into hearts and souls of humans that seek to make themselves gods into godhood. we are not grasshoppers to … Continue reading Lest We Forget The Boychild → from NaijaStories.com https://ift.tt/2jgdxna

“Everything on the surface of the world is so chaotic right now, so there’s a desire to access a place that’s more uncharted.” The  New York Times profiles author Melissa Broder and her new novel,  The Pisces  (which was part of our Great 2018 Book Preview ). The post One Fish, Two Fish appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions https://ift.tt/2jfX6Hn

“They are both popular and literary and seem to have no problem standing with a foot in each category.” For The Paris Review , our own  Adam O’Fallon Price  writes about the “unambiguous sophistication” of Curtis Sittenfeld ‘s writing—which is often regulated to the world of “chick lit”—and her new short story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It . (Read our interview with Sittenfeld.) The post You Think It, She’ll Write It appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions https://ift.tt/2HCTk9O

“But the truth is that even very small actions can ripple outwards and have huge and far-reaching effects. In other words, the fires you start can be little, but don’t think they don’t matter, or that they won’t spread.” The Los Angeles Review of Books   interviewed  Celeste Ng  about writing about women, transracial adoption, and her novel,  Little Fires Everywhere  (featured in multiple Year in Reading entries ). The post Caution: Little Fires May Grow appeared first on The Millions . from The Millions https://ift.tt/2KiMi7T

Toronto – December 2015 Dolapo stood in front of the mirror in the beauty store critically assessing the sample short fringe  wig she was trying on. “That looks good on you.” the store assistant next to her said.. “Yeah, I like it too.” “If you want to be adventurous, try it in color 33. The … Continue reading Blooming at Dawn 04 → from NaijaStories.com https://ift.tt/2KkDxdn

what about the boys in Pakistan’s war front? what about those boys in Iran battlefield, those boys learning how to pull the trigger with a warning fingers on the crossroad of Iraq & Afghanistan? what about those boys raped in the street of Nigeria? those boys in the act of loneliness in the army, what … Continue reading What About The BoyChild? → from NaijaStories.com https://ift.tt/2HyYsaO

  Some of the stories in Rita Bullwinkel’s debut collection,  Belly Up , take place in a world that we could call real, and others take place in a world we could call supernatural, but in the hands of a craftswoman like Bullwinkel, both are somehow equal in their strangeness. While reading, I would arrive at the end of a story in which nothing truly paranormal had happened and be nonetheless filled with a sense of disquiet, a sense that I was looking at a photograph of my own world, the light and color settings tweaked ever so slightly. Reality, in Bullwinkel’s hands, is subverted with nuanced strokes of the surreal, in much the same way that David Lynch tilts our perception with his depictions of suburbia. The forms of the stories vary, and Bullwinkel is just as good in a longer, traditional-style narrative as she is in a short, two-page piece of poetic prose. They’re joined by a macabre thread, peopled with dead husbands, teenaged girls obsessed with the idea of cannibalis...

Marcus Wicker.   Although both his books are influenced by the rhythms of hip-hop and spoken word, Marcus Wicker’s second book of poetry, Silencer , is a noticeable departure. His first book, Maybe the Saddest Thing , looks at Dave Chappelle, RuPaul, and Kenny G in an exploration of masculinity and pop culture. But after the killings of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and so many others, Wicker decided to turn his second book  toward the conversation around race and blackness in America. In Silencer, Wicker explores fear and rage, the need to be hyperaware of one’s surroundings, and the worlds of suburbia and academia—worlds that can sometimes lull people into a false sense of security. His poems find joy in language and nature, comfort in religion, and express both pride and vulnerability—often all in the same poem. In his first book, Wicker writes, as many writers do, about his faith in the act of writing. In Silencer , there are no such poems. Instead, he refuses to b...

Though Venus is more like Earth in size, Mars is the planet that regularly makes headlines. New ice under its sandy cliffs has been caught on camera, causing more hope that life may have been present at some point in the past. Prominent people like Elon Musk are talking about going to Mars in the near future. Scientists are once again planning sustainable living quarters for the colonization of the fourth planet from our sun. This is not the first time humanity has endeavored to send a manned mission there. For more than a century this planet has been popularized in the news as well as in pop culture. Mars has especially held a rich place in world literature. In 1877, the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli said he saw channel-like structures in his observations of the Martian surface. Partially through mistranslation, some scientists further thought these were actually canals built by intelligent life-forms. A few years later, American astronomer Percival Lowell agreed whol...