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We are a public forum committed to collective reasoning and the imagination of a more just world. Join today to help us keep the discussion of ideas free and open to everyone, and enjoy member benefits like our quarterly books.
Such grand theories! My governess, a stern young thing, took
great pains to instruct me in the ways of music and joy. I was an ugly child, prone to Goethe, loath to comb my hair. How I hated her milky skin and berry-bright cheeks, her long fingers stroking me awake from nightmares under the eiderdown. . . . The snow-crusted tangle of Tchaikovsky's beard grew up around the chair as we rocked. Our cuckoo was frozen at twelve. The dachshunds humped furiously. Far off from Papa's study I heard the sound of pages turning. What day is it that means the endless passing of flowers? By the firelight, a black dog pried its sleeping eye open, not wanting to give up the dark, not knowing what else to look for.
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In her new book, Danish poet Olga Ravn writes with open love, pity, and compassion for her strange yet familiar creations.
Draconian individual punishment distracts from systemic change and reinforces the cruelest and most racist system of incarceration on the planet.
Our well-being depends on a better understanding of how the logic of labor has twisted our relationship with pleasure.
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