A Mirror to the Mind

Our Top Five Pieces on the Arts in 2023.

1. The Ferocious Music Of Living

PETER HIMMELMAN

Mostly there are the regular mornings. The days we wake to our little human things; grab something for breakfast, take ten or fifteen minutes to read the paper, drive here and there, call a friend —and perhaps, share a laugh before getting on to the next chore.

But there are also days like this one, days when all our habits, all our rote, ritualized, unnoticed behaviors are suddenly caught in the act, as it were, suddenly seen for all their normal-ness. Noticing is itself a way of bringing one to a kind of attention that isn’t experienced on so-called normal days. This morning, as I sat buckled in my seat on a flight home from Seattle, I got a call from my wife. Since we’d only spoken an hour before and said our “see-you-soons,” I already knew what she was going to tell me. Our friend had died.

Read the whole piece here.

2. But Doctor, I Am Pagliacci

ERIN GRUODIS-GIMBEL

A man walks into a psychiatrist’s office and says, “Doctor, I’m depressed. I’m sad all the time; there’s no hope; life doesn’t seem worth living.” The doctor says, “Go to the theater tonight. There’s a famous clown, Pagliacci, performing, and if you watch him, you won’t be depressed.” The man looks up and says, “But doctor, I am Pagliacci.” 

I’ve gotten to the point in my life where I don’t have personal attachments to comedians anymore. They kill themselves too often. It’s like dating men that have good taste in music and only one set of sheets—they’ll break your heart, and you’ll be mad at yourself about it. 

Read the whole piece here.

3. It’s What You Didn’t Say

EVE GRUBIN

I love poetry for what it doesn’t say. That might sound strange about a medium that is made up of words. But poems are also made up of spaces. And it’s the meaning in those spaces that resonate for me. Every poem has spaces. No matter how narrative or descriptive a poem is, there is always something not being said. There is one poem in particular that powerfully exhibits how reticence, silence, gaps, spaces – however you’d like to call it – communicates meaning.

Read the whole piece here.

4. Springsteen: Last Man Standing

VERNON W. CISNEY

This past March, I checked off a major bucket list item when I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform at the Capital One Arena in Washington, DC, appearing for the first time on tour together since 2017. That I was able to see them with my son, Jacob, whom I initiated into Springsteen fandom at a very young age, solidified the event as one of those indelible, almost ethereal experiences that I’ll carry with me to the end. 

Read the whole piece here.

5. All the Lonely People

ADAM JACOBS

One of the weird features of the 80s sitcom genre was the propensity of the writers (who generally churned out lowbrow slapstick) to suddenly throw in a surprisingly serious episode. The ratio seemed to be about 97% mindless banter between predictable but lovable characters who get caught up in all kinds of comedic hijinx and the remaining 3% that hit us Gen Xers like a screwball between the eyes. 

Read the whole piece here.