PolyArchive

  Remember WinMX? In that period when I switched from an anti-internet holdout to a wannabe webmonkey, WinMX was THE P2P to install. I missed the original Napster by a few months, and then later LimeWire and Kazaa made piracy all spammy and spendy, but for a few brief years, WinMX was a fabulous, clean […]

Memory Siegfried Sassoon (Limerick, 1 February 1918) When I was young my heart and head were light, And I was gay and feckless as a colt Out in the fields, with morning in the may, Wind on the grass, wings in the orchard bloom. O thrilling sweet, my joy, when life was free And all […]

Ode: Salute to the French Negro Poets Frank O’Hara From near the sea, like Whitman my great predecessor, I call to the spirits of other lands to make fecund my existence do not spare your wrath upon our shores, that trees may grow upon the sea, mirror of our total mankind in the weather one […]

О, весна без конца и без краю – Без конца и без краю мечта! Узнаю тебя, жизнь! Принимаю! И приветствую звоном щита! Принимаю тебя, неудача, И удача, тебе мой привет! В заколдованной области плача, В тайне смеха – позорного нет! Принимаю бессонные споры, Утро в завесах темных окна, Чтоб мои воспаленные взоры Раздражала, пьянила весна! […]

I haven’t seen my spinner ring in quite a while. I wonder where it is. It was a silver ring with a band in the center that had a kind of antique-y looking braid carved in relief on it. It was from back when Kohl’s sold sterling silver that was actually quite decent for less […]

Everyone was talking about seeing the aurora borealis this past week. It was a reminder that this thing I love and obsess about is something many other people love and obsess about as well. I saw the northern lights when I was 6 years old, and I have never recovered. I will never rest until […]

WHEN I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, ‘Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free.’ But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, ‘The heart out of the […]

A few days ago, I finally finished Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. The fact that it took me so long to read a book about typewriters, the internet, psychology, and other things I love probably proves Carr’s point better than anything I can write here. So here are […]

Wisława Szymborska died yesterday. She was 88. I love Poland for celebrating its poets, finding cultural heroes not only in the past but also the present day cities and villages (and shipyards). Though in Szymborska’s case, perhaps it was the worst thing to happen to her, worsening her agoraphobia. The Nobel she won silenced her […]

Karl: Okay, I have another question. I could answer myself but I would like to ask you. What is your idea of a perfect day? Karl: Every day should be perfect. It’s up to you to work on it and to make the day perfect. There is no perfect day. It is a very sad […]

Luminism Mark Strand And though it was brief, and slight, and nothing To have been held onto so long, I remember it, As if it had come from within, one of the scenes The mind sets for itself, night after night, only To part from, quickly and without warning. Sunlight Flooded the valley floor and […]

Lines for the Fortune Cookies I think you’re wonderful and so does everyone else. Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you–even bigger. You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello. You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone. You […]

i can read. There are some things I miss about my old job, such as the awesome schedule and some great colleagues. I miss the concise emails signed only “gs” and the trips across the street to the basement where a very cool crew of a former navy seal, an artist/fashionista, and an independent scholar/former […]

The House Was Quiet and the World Was Calm Wallace Stevens The house was quiet and the world was calm. The reader became the book; and summer night Was like the conscious being of the book. The house was quiet and the world was calm. The words were spoken as if there was no book, […]

    Photo by George Berkentin / Conde Nast Archive myvintagevogue.