This compact volume offers an aesthetically robust and spiritually poignant reflection on Jewish visitation stones.
In this nonfiction work, Leo, Mendelsohn, and Allen explore traditions of Jewish remembrance in photographs and prose.
You would be forgiven if, looking at Leo’s photographs in this volume, you mistook them for an abstract exercise in geometric form. Printed in black and white with rich contrast, the stones that are their subject have a tendency to morph: The smooth, mottled white of one rock emerges from darkness like an egg; another pebble, reflected in the granite on which it is sitting, smudges and blurs as if seen through water. With a close, insistent gaze trained upon knobbed surfaces, the camera turns crevices and bits of grit into mysterious landscapes, small rocks opening into expansive worlds. The framing essays remind us that these stones are elements in a human narrative. Placed on gravestones, the rocks participate in a long-standing Jewish tradition, marking an act of remembrance and serving as a point of connection to the memories of deceased loved ones. Offering biblical context and philosophical ruminations, the closing essay by Allen suggests that these stones are symbols of permanence, operating as “a material response to that which is no longer a tangible relationship, imprinting the memory of a loved one within us.” But, as Mendelsohn’s opening essay points out, stones can decay as well: “Our desire that the memory of who we once were should endure beyond the natural span of our lives,” the author writes, “is made more poignant by the fact that stone, as hard as it is, can stop ‘signifying’ in the way we had intended.” In this sense, the photographs are themselves an act of commemoration, not only of the human relationships that they represent, but also of these bits of matter at a single moment, not yet changed by wind and rain and time itself.
This compact volume offers an aesthetically robust and spiritually poignant reflection on Jewish visitation stones.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781735762982
Page Count: 80
Publisher: MW Publications
Review Posted Online: April 14, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.
An examination of how the U.S. can revitalize its commitment to freedom.
In this ambitious study, Snyder, author of On Tyranny, The Road to Unfreedom, and other books, explores how American freedom might be reconceived not simply in negative terms—as freedom from coercion, especially by the state—but positive ones: the freedom to develop our human potential within sustaining communal structures. The author blends extensive personal reflections on his own evolving understanding of liberty with definitions of the concept by a range of philosophers, historians, politicians, and social activists. Americans, he explains, often wrongly assume that freedom simply means the removal of some barrier: “An individual is free, we think, when the government is out of the way. Negative freedom is our common sense.” In his careful and impassioned description of the profound implications of this conceptual limitation, Snyder provides a compelling account of the circumstances necessary for the realization of positive freedom, along with a set of detailed recommendations for specific sociopolitical reforms and policy initiatives. “We have to see freedom as positive, as beginning from virtues, as shared among people, and as built into institutions,” he writes. The author argues that it’s absurd to think of government as the enemy of freedom; instead, we ought to reimagine how a strong government might focus on creating the appropriate conditions for human flourishing and genuine liberty. Another essential and overlooked element of freedom is the fostering of a culture of solidarity, in which an awareness of and concern for the disadvantaged becomes a guiding virtue. Particularly striking and persuasive are the sections devoted to eviscerating the false promises of libertarianism, exposing the brutal injustices of the nation’s penitentiaries, and documenting the wide-ranging pathologies that flow from a tax system favoring the ultrawealthy.
An incisive, urgently relevant analysis of—and call to action on—America’s foundational ideal.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9780593728727
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: June 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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