One night in Kyoto, a friend and I ended up in a room the size of a small Princeton double, drinking beer with two blond-coiffed Japanese men who, despite their doting, seemed anxious for us to leave. The place, called “Athena”, was a host club — a lounge where female clients pay for an all-you-can-drink bar menu and an hour or two of conversation with a well-dressed male attendant.
My father stands roasting in his black neoprene wetsuit, a surfboard jammed under each arm so that he looks like he might just take off at any moment. In his face I find memories, sewn in amongst the creases and … Read More
It’s the little things you remember when you die. The children. The moments. Your face after achieving multiple simultaneous orgasms. The orgasms. The presidential campaigns, the incipient volcano underlying the western half of the continental U.S. It’s the little things … Read More
Several Thursday eves ago my two older sisters and brother took me for a night on the town to celebrate Baby Sister’s 21st birthday. The night had all the makings of a Ha Sibling Extravaganza: tears, laughter, self-congratulatory remarks, Scotch, … Read More
After her father escaped the October Revolution, and after her parents fled deeper into Poland from the Russian Invasion of 1920, Magdalena Abakanowicz was born. At the age of nine she saw the Third Reich sink its talons into her … Read More
A couple of days ago—I’m sure you remember; it was only a couple of days ago, just work with me here—I sat down to skim the rest of a Faulkner short story in the three-and-a-half minutes I had before lecture, when I was interrupted by the music you were playing. Can we talk about that for a sec?
When Cornel West speaks, his body seems to perform its own kind of abstract reasoning. The gestures imply an inductive process that stands in relation to what he is saying but that is untethered by mere words. His signature gesticulation … Read More
Now that it’s October and this year’s parade of “Oscar hopefuls” is in motion, the time has come to ask the question: What were this summer’s movies—collectively—all about?
I hesitate to call Professor Jeff Nunokawa a campus fixture, a Princeton big shot of sorts, as it might flatten over the reason I like him in the first place—his commitment to the students as people themselves (not as an … Read More
When I walk down Witherspoon Street away from the iconic FitzRandolph Gate that shelters Princeton University students from the town around them, my feet head toward the place that feels most like home. If it is a beautiful sunny day … Read More
After completing his A.B. at Princeton in 1970, Michael Barry came back to campus in 2004 to serve as lecturer in the Near Eastern Studies Department. His signature course, NES 307: Afghanistan and the Great Powers 1747-2001, explores social and political dynamics within the country as well as…