Arts

The Arts

House of Mercury poem as read by Dr. Fady Joudah

A Poem On How The Human Spirit Survives Overlapping Crises

In Dr. Fady Joudah’s poem “House of Mercury,” a severe summer storm has blown over Houston. The storm’s destructive winds woke up the narrator’s father, who hears the “snaps and creaks” of the two oaks in the front yard. But it was a “nearly uprooted fig tree,” the poem notes, that brought the father to tears.

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Fatima's Great Outdoors, by Ambreen Tariq and Stevie Lewis Kokila

Camping Is An Adventure For All Americans In ‘Fatima’s Great Outdoors’

Ambreen Tariq’s new children’s book, Fatima’s Great Outdoors is a story about an Indian immigrant family’s first time exploring the outdoors, and it’s as much a story about curiosity and adventure as it is about trying to assimilate as an immigrant in this country. Tariq says Fatima’s story is her own story. “Every moment in that book is real. Every snippet, every story.”

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Tina Turner and her children, photographed in 1967. Courtesy of HBO

Tina Turner’s Life Explored In New Documentary

Near the end of HBO’s new documentary, Tina, the movie implies the legendary singer has made a decision: after this film rolls out, Tina Turner just might be done appearing in public and talking about her life. It’s an odd message, coming from a woman whose life story and experiences have inspired at least four books, an Oscar-nominated biopic, a Broadway musical and, now, this new film.

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BOOK COVER - The Life of the Mind, by Christine Smallwood

Farcical ‘Life Of The Mind’ Skewers Academic Life And Adjunct ‘Hell’

The Life of the Mind is about endings that dribble to a close, the inexorable erosion of dreams, the slow leak of youthful buoyancy. It’s about being young-ish at a time in history when it feels like many things might be fading away, including the natural world. The great accomplishment of Smallwood’s taut novel is that while it is, indeed, about all those grim subjects, it’s also one of the wittiest, most deliciously farcical novels I’ve read in a long time.

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