Cowie posits fantasy as a “mise-en-scene of desire”: a setting forth of an elaborate scene of drawn-out pleasure, of almosts and near-misses, of denial and the controlling of masculine and feminine subject positions. In Cowe’s words, “fantasy depends not on particular objects, but on their setting out; and the pleasure of fantasy lies in the settin... See more

Too often, we think of notebooks as a way-station: a necessary stop en-route to the perfected, polished work of art. But what if the notebook is the work of art? What if the process of taking notes is the point?

I don’t think that humans can really move forward into whatever’s coming for us next without facing what we’ve done to our home and each other. Such a reckoning includes the beauty, joy, and community found in crisis, as well as the pain. The sociologist Donna Haraway calls this “staying with the trouble.”

what if public libraries were open late every night and we could engage in public life there instead of having to choose between drinking at the bar and domestic isolation

Only that nothing works out the way you plan, which is a blessing every hour. Life always takes a different form, if only because life will always be more imaginative — deeper, wiser, more surprising — than you are.

“There are old people who only think about the past, but it’s not like that around here.” She leaned her cane on a rock. “You have to do things,” she reflected. “There’s always a future, even if it’s very small.”

In recent years, I've begun to suspect that a life consumed by ideas will not bring me closer to the divine. The freedom I seek, it seems, doesn't lie in my laying about, steeped in my own brain, but rather in the stillness I've found in the more mundane moments of my life. In these moments, there is no euphoria, nor even any active reflection on g... See more