Some essays

Outside (though sometimes cross-posted on) this blog are a few essays I've written about movies, art, and education, mostly.

Letters to a Young Artist (review). Here's a brief and admittedly gushing Goodreads review of Anna Deveare Smith's no-nonsense book about art and process and education.

Arts, Liberated. This piece, published in my former college's magazine, is kind of a philosophy of education and its friend, working. Sometimes I revisit it to remind myself of how amazing the students and alumni and friends I know are.

Lincoln: Compromise and the Purist Man in America. In my review of the 2012 film, Lincoln, I reflect on the unavoidable, yet ever unsettled question of how cultures can and must change, in the context of tradition, rightness, leadership, and compromise. (Someday I might get around to writing about the movie from a different angle: the role of hands and Day-Lewis' genius in embodying Lincoln.)

Book Reviews in Projections journal. I believe audiences intuitively respond to popular movies - and their surrounding elements, such as celebrity stars - in political as well as aesthetic ways. This 2009 essay discusses two books about Bollywood which deal with that idea.

When Girls Became Lions (review). In reviewing this 2014 novel about Title IX and a marathon trek to support girls' participation in sports, I highlight the book's mystery and story.

Bourne Legacy: "I really have no idea what's going on." Sometimes even ubiquitously analytical I know a movie's meaning and merit are less significant than its carefreedom. So, I analyzed a funnish movie that's happy with its nonsensical plot and uninterested in its critical potential.

Merry, with a touch of melancholy, makes for a good Christmas. Asked to write (during the season) about Christmas movies, I got a little moody. 


Subject to updates, as Life and Language always should be.