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Essays History Literature

Interleavings: Serendipity and the Auto/Biographical Process

Biographical and autobiographical writing entwine. Why did I choose to write about a woman I never met and had no ties to—except for my interest in Jewish women’s history and the field of Psychoanalysis? Immediately the writer’s self is injected into the story. Sometimes Dr. Buxbaum turns up in my dreams, and in the morning I have to sort out the dream so it won’t get mixed up with biography.

Advice

Dear Wizard…

Welcome to the inaugural edition of “Dear Wizard.” This is an intuitive advice column. It’s not an etiquette column, it’s not an ethics column, it’s not an advice column about the practical logistics of things. It’s a column where you bring me your most tender, sticky dilemmas, and I help illuminate the energetic patterns that are running that affect the situation.

Theater

Upstart Crow’s Titus Andronicus: In Which We Learn That Women Can Also Be Vicious

Of Titus Andronicus it is known that it was once one of Billy Shakes’ least produced plays, because it is one of his more visceral, brute-force works. Its metered language is geared toward the barbarity of its story, and contains little of lyrical beauty usually associated with the playwright–that is to say, it is lyrical, but vicious instead of beatific. It is the work of Shakespeare during his crowd pleasing days, its pulpy purpose is to rouse the rabble.

Comix

Why Jet City Comic Show Did Not Suck

Comix has been hijacked by people who have little to no interest in the field itself. Jet City Comic Show was at least a noble attempt to put comics back into comics conventions. Its founders referred to it as a “back to basics comic show” which is a fair description. The concentration was clearly upon comics, comics art and comics artists. It was exactly what a convention should look like.