Author: My World of Interiors
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Chapter 27: I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone
The boy calls me often this term; he wants to tell me all about the fun he’s having. He says he has to be humble with everyone else, and I’m the only person he can brag to, the one he can tell everything. His little girlfriend would be upset by some of it, and Mrs…
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Anna Boghiguian
Essay · Art & Lives The Nomad Who Carries History in a Suitcase Anna Boghiguian has no fixed address and no fixed medium. What she has, instead, is an inexhaustible appetite for the world’s buried histories — of trade, of empire, of displacement, of the bodies that paid the price for other people’s prosperity —…
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Chapter 26: That’s All Right
The boy is nervous as we drive to the studio. “Don’t be,” I tell him. “Remember, I’m here, and you were born for this.” “Thank you,” he says. “I don’t know. I just hope it’ll…” “Breathe in. Slowly. Then out.” I guide him through it. “Centre yourself. Find your core before you walk in. I’ll…
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Fritz Wotruba
Essay · Art & Architecture The Man Who Built the Human Figure from Rubble Fritz Wotruba spent his life doing one thing: finding the body inside the block. That this task consumed him entirely, across five decades of exile, return, and monumental ambition, tells us something important about what sculpture is for — and about…
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Chapter 25: Life Could Be a Dream
I watch the boy, Scotty from Sun, and his bass player Bill run through every song the boy knows. Scotty’s wife is warm and sweet and keeps me company, but I can tell they aren’t exactly blown away by him. The boy doesn’t seem to mind. He’s off in his own little world today, not…
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Katharine Hepburn
Essay · Arts & Lives A House That Made Her Possible Katharine Hepburn did not invent herself. She was manufactured — lovingly, rigorously, sometimes mercilessly — by two of the most unusual parents that Progressive Era New England ever produced, and she spent the rest of her life living out the experiment they designed. By…
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Chapter 24: A Fool Such As I
We are in the patio garden at Tilly’s parents’ house. I arrange to spend the summer in Newport with Cornelia. Her parents will be in Europe, so we’ll have the house to ourselves. She invites everyone to drop in whenever they want. Topper says he might come and see us, if I would like him…
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Mohammed Ali
Essay · Sport & Culture The Man Who Refusedto Be Only a Fighter Mohammed Ali did not merely win bouts. He waged a campaign — against racism, against empire, against the very idea that a Black man in America must keep his mouth shut and take his beating gracefully. By Bergotte There is a photograph,…
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Chapter 23: I’ll Never Stand in Your Way
I am surprised when I receive a letter from Bryn Mawr, and it turns out I’ve done much better in my exams and essays than expected. I decide to give college a chance before I determine whether or not I want to drop out.I speak to Tilly, who, for once, is warm and generous with…
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Cher and the Art of Outlasting America
Cher has lasted so long, and in so many forms, that she can seem less like an entertainer than like a permanent feature of the culture itself. She belongs to that tiny class of figures who have ceased to be merely famous and become symbolic: instantly recognisable, endlessly referential, somehow both singular and omnipresent. Singer,…
