When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good
Author: Vala Schriefer
The Familiar Photo: Reflections on Friedlander’s ‘Pomona, New York’
A photographer ventures into the woods to capture the façade of a sweet little white house. The house belongs to a friend, and it’s his first visit and he’s immediately attracted to its postcard geometry, and how, in some strange way, the posture confirms something about his friend’s character. Turning back to the house, his
Spleen
The spring and I are strangers now, extending hungry glances through fat green stems and the blush of fallen berries— those beloved friends of the pilgrim’s foot. More and more I slip into the soil to read the pages of rock. Retreating to the muddy infinite, I spy the fleshy leviathan, earthworm tonguing a
“Eruption Imminent”: Volcanic Activity on the Reykjanes Peninsula
My grandfather called me in the afternoon when it first began, Varstu nokkuð hrædd? Were you afraid? Ha? Ó, nei nei… Huh? Oh, no… This spring semester, I have been taking my online courses alone in my house in Iceland, a peaceful study spot near the ocean. I live in a tiny town called Njárðvík,
Monet’s Summer
I stand before a summer day. Softer, warmer, brighter than the day I’m in. Monet’s vertical canvas, the object of my looking, dissolves, and I am left in space itself. Nature can be this for the mind, a tabula rasa. Hm… I’m not frightened by the vastness, the entrance is not a jolt or a
Memories on the Train
On the train I move at birdish speeds. I see buildings blur into living embers, points stretched into foreign conversation and foreign frames and the infinity of presence upon my sight. And the train too is looking, spawns a second set of eyes, mirrors me in its glass. My doppelgänger in the window glides in