ISSUES | winter 2019

In the titular essay of Adam Kirsch’s essay collection Who Wants to Be a Jewish Writer? the critic and poet recounts the ways in which many of his and my…    read more

The Many Lives of Anna May Wong “Life is too serious to take seriously” —Anna May Wong While walking to school on the outskirts of LA’s Chinatown, Anna May Wong…    read more

When visiting a city, I take solitary, late-night walks, enjoying the feeling of being both lost and at home. Cities at night with their empty streets become a dreamscape of…    read more

The founding concepts of the United States are based on Enlightenment ideals of equality and freedom. Throughout our history these broad ideals have struggled against anything that might impinge on…    read more

To Lead a Pig Skyward I read a pig can’t look up. That you’ve got to gently tilt their heads back if they’re going to take in the night skies.…    read more

Hospitality On my first day at the new job I scanned my whole body and could not find a name I felt like a biblical error, I had to lie…    read more

Hunted Imagine being hunted—poached, illegally, knowing how much someone desires you, wants your body, will never stop stalking you with whatever weapons he devises. Camouflaged, utterly silent, relentless, a hunter…    read more

“There’s someone in the bathroom at night who tries to stop me from getting in,” my father insists a few weeks before his death “I don’t see him, but I…    read more

We’d only just moved to our new house on Summit Street when Dad moved out. He left his toolbox in the basement—some faded Craftsman box filled with wrenches and crowbars.…    read more

“How old are you?” local guides and drivers asked as I caned up and down hills and wobbled through woodlands. When I answered—seventy-two—they said, “That’s very old in Vanuatu,” or…    read more

One day it wasn’t there. The next day it was. One day we were busy working the whole length of our section of road, south of 63rd Street, north of…    read more

Around dawn, the house shakes us awake. As Californians, we know what to do. Never hang pictures above your bed, or shelves of books. Those mistakes could kill you. Avoid…    read more

Who do you trust? Who tells you the truth? You trust your mechanic but you keep the receipts. You trust your mother, but you cut the cards. Maybe you trust…    read more