Essays – Page 3 – Vol. 1 Brooklyn

Silver Fingers

January 31, 2024 No Comments

Book

Silver Fingers
by Ellie Eberlee

It wasn’t meant to become a habit. I’d read the novels before. The essays, too—everyone has. I owned multiple copies of each actual book: the shelves of my bedroom back in Toronto housed three editions of The Voyage Out, two each of Night and Day and Jacob’s Room, five of Mrs. Dalloway, six of To the Lighthouse (including a beloved, rare hardcover edition with watercolor illustrations I’d been given for my twenty-third birthday), and one of The Waves. With me in Brooklyn I had Night and Day, Dalloway, and Lighthouse downloaded on my Kindle. Hell, I had the whole collection on my phone as audiobooks, not that I’d tell anyone—Woolf obsessions are a bit of a cliché among queer white women.

Essays

Pancakes

January 17, 2024 No Comments

Pancakes

Pancakes
by Judith Sharlin

My husband David called them “Best Pancakes.” On Sunday mornings, we had my creation—whole grain pancakes with sliced bananas. Our son Hillel enjoyed them with chocolate chips. At times, he had them with both chocolate chips and sliced bananas.

I had handwritten the recipe on an index card that became soiled from the flour and eggs used in the pancake batter ingredients. Then, later, I typed it out because David urged me to make it more permanent and include it in my “next cookbook,” he said. I taped the recipe to an index card.

Books, Essays, Featured, music

Notes on Nudieland

January 9, 2024 No Comments

When I was finding my way into worlds of music beyond the Top 40 and classic rock of my hometown, I thought it was immeasurably cool that Ian MacKaye from Fugazi had also been in Minor Threat. Or that Vernon Reid from Living Colour had also been involved in the downtown NY jazz scene. The first hat trick I recall was realizing Erasure’s Vince Clarke had also been in Depeche Mode and Yaz(oo).

Essays

Black Punk Now

December 13, 2023 No Comments

Guitar amplifier

Black Punk Now
by Camille A. Collins

Punk at its heart is a search, a demand, for truth. Beyond the cliché emblems of studded chokers and spiked mohawks lies a creed that has served the angst of young working-class white men in Britian in the 70s; cool east coast girls of the same era, like Patti Smith and Joan Jett; and Black youth. Black tastemakers have been active in punk from the very start.

Essays

On Seeing Someone

November 29, 2023 No Comments

Lens image

On Seeing Someone
by Cole Cohen

The glasses that were supposed to mimic loss of central vision arrived while you were away; first at a work conference in Baltimore you hadn’t told me about and then another conference after that, I forget where now. I waited for a couple of days to pick the package up from the mailroom, until I felt more like seeing the world from your perspective. My work as a writer feels so abstract compared to being a doctor. We’re both working on the problem of cognition just from different ends, and anyway anyone who has tried to heal knows that it’s also an abstract art, with its own setbacks and triumphs often appearing out of order and without warning. I thought that I might be well suited to care for the person who cares for all of the other people, or at least it felt nice to think of myself as someone like that.

Essays

Shapeless

November 16, 2023 No Comments

People walking

Shapeless
by Emily Alexander

Late summer soon after moving to the city, I take the train and wander until I have to pee. The streets smell vaguely of garbage and excrement. I don’t know where I am. Sunglasses, cobblestone, the sure strides of locals and the tourists’ chatter, wide eyes. A cop car parked on 5th Avenue has its windows rolled down, cigars attached to the arms of faceless shadows hanging out of them, smoldering into the heavy air. A woman with bright pink sneakers jogs by.

Essays, Featured

Writing Berlin Like It’s Made-Up

November 1, 2023 No Comments

Berlin

Writing Berlin Like It’s Made-Up
by Kat Hausler

When people hear that I’m an American writer living in Europe, they often summon up images of the Lost Generation hanging at some Paris café. But I’m not an expat on a sojourn here; I’m an immigrant. I work a German office job, file German tax returns, have a German driver’s license – not that I use it much – and conduct my daily life in German. I’ve spent almost my entire adult life in Berlin. At the same time, I grew up in the U.S. and write in my native language for an international, but largely American audience.

Essays, Featured

My Central Park Office

October 27, 2023 No Comments

View of Central Park

My Central Park Office
by Lee Matthew Goldberg

I’m a born and raised New Yorker, used to the city’s grit and urban sprawl, but I retreat most days to Central Park when I’m writing. I have a tree, which perfectly contours my back where I’ve written many of my books. I sit in the grass, take off my shoes and socks, and locate a sense of calm in a city where it’s often hard to find moments of peace. Since office spaces cost a lot of money, and I enjoy leaving my apartment to write so it feels like a job, Central Park becomes the perfect respite to fuel my creativity.