Author: JohnValbyNation

Kirstin Valdez Quade Reads John L’Heureux

Listen with: iTunes WNYC Stitcher TuneIn Kirstin Valdez Quade joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “The Long Black Line,” by John L’Heureux, from a 2018 issue of the magazine. Quade is the author of the story collection “Night at the Fiestas,” which won the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard Prize and a “5…

By JohnValbyNation July 2, 2019 0

Democrats’ Cautious Return to the War on Poverty

The poor used to matter—at least as far as political rhetoric goes. About half a century ago, Lyndon Johnson launched a war not on the struggles of the American middle class but on poverty—which had been revived as a major issue by activists and public intellectuals like the socialist Michael Harrington. In 1963, Dwight MacDonald…

By JohnValbyNation July 1, 2019 0

A Photographer’s Ode to the Women of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles is synonymous with spectacle. The first was a six-day-long extravaganza (Baby whales! Fireworks! The première of Molière’s “Tartuffe”!) hosted by Louis XIV, in 1664. Times change, and spectacles with them. In the twenty-first century, the palace embarked on an ambitious series of contemporary art exhibitions. The first was in 2008, when…

By JohnValbyNation June 29, 2019 0

Tiffany Cabán Upends Politics As Usual in Queens

At the Queens County Criminal Courts Building, arraignments take place in the basement, and, late on Tuesday afternoon, the usual scene was unfolding there. Officers whisked in one person after another to stand before the judge; all of them had been arrested within the past twenty-four hours, and all appeared dishevelled and exhausted. One older…

By JohnValbyNation June 27, 2019 0