Berfrois

October 2016

Blow Smashed

Blow Smashed

The earliest instance of a ghost in European literature, according to Bruce, is Elpenor. If you don’t remember Elpenor, you’re hardly alone. His own shipmates couldn’t remember him either.

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Adam Staley Groves: Belief in Voting

Adam Staley Groves: Belief in Voting

The fairy tale, that one single act of decision at the ballot box—supposedly someday in November—maybe the 8th or 28th has bearing or meaning, is coming to an end for many believers.

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Women’s Women’s Women’s

Women’s Women’s Women’s

Just as San Francisco was named after an Italian saint and New Orleans after a French king’s brother, the Duc d’Orléans, so New York, city and state, were named after King Charles II’s brother, the Duke of York.

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Jessica Sequeira: Warp Fields

Jessica Sequeira: Warp Fields

A star sends its light through space, and this passes through the strong gravitational field of the sun. The field bends the light, so the position of the star changes.

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Farewell, Mr. Hooper

Farewell, Mr. Hooper

I used to joke that between apparel, toys, books and DVDs, my family was, for a time, single-handedly funding Sesame Workshop, the non-profit that produces Sesame Street.

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Justin E. H. Smith remembers Kenneth Von Smith

Justin E. H. Smith remembers Kenneth Von Smith

In the week leading up to Friday, September 2, 2016, I accompanied my father in his transition to death. I came back and he did not. I am not yet old, and was only there to help him across.

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‘After orgasm, Sade’s libertines are briefly freed from the confusing sensation of need’

‘After orgasm, Sade’s libertines are briefly freed from the confusing sensation of need’

In the mid-eighteenth century, the term bureaucracy entered the world by way of French literature. The neologism was originally forged as a nonsense term to describe what its creator, political economist Vincent de Gournay, considered the ridiculous possibility of “rule by office,” or, more literally, “rule by a desk.”...

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Nightcrawling

Nightcrawling

If Tim Lawrence had wanted his third book, “Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983,” to go pop, he would have titled it “The World That Made Madonna,” picked a different cover, and added a chapter or two focusing on her.

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