A lesson in Dylan appreciation

When Christopher Ricks, author of critical works on Milton, Keats, and Eliot, turned his attention to Bob Dylan, critics grumbled that he could talk one into believing that even a phone book is poetry. Now that Dylan has won the Pulitzer Prize, they may have to reconsider. [more]

What is "it"?

Ever since Nike exhorted us to "Just do it!", the third person pronoun has been the vessel for a whole range of cultural suggestions. Tim Ochser finds that "it" is not all that it seems. [more]

I come to you from my solitude

Uldis Tirons on the legendary Georgian philosopher Merab Mamardashvili, whom the Cheka once called "the freest man in the country". [more]

I don't love hockey and hockey doesn't love me

"Sport's primitive allure provides a rare and necessary outlet for people desperate to rally behind a cause other than making a living", writes Tim Ochser, unimpressed by the spectacle of the Ice Hockey World Championships in Riga. [more]

Born into "white air and waiting"

Charles "Hank" Bukowski 1920-1994

Philosopher Jason Potter is surprised to discover something like admiration for poetry's most (in)famous hardman. [more]

Sacrificial therapy

Letter from a prison in Minsk

"Being imprisoned feels like being pregnant: it's worrying at the beginning and at the end." Andrej Dynko, Belarusian opposition journalist and editor, spent ten days in prison last year on "hooliganism" charges. His prison diary has won him the Lorenzo Natali European Commission Prize for journalists writing on human rights issues. [more]

Thinking in Latvia

The question "Why do you go to Latvia so often?" triggers American philosopher Jason Potter to reflect upon his motives. His answer: "I come to Latvia to think." But what is it about Latvia that makes it so congenial to thinking? [more]

The world from the viewpoint of Milorad Pavic

The author of Dictionary of the Khazars explains how he has been writing for some 200 years, why he has come to despise all pens, and how he sees the world. [more]

Letters to friends

Spiegel journalist Carolin Emcke thought that level-headed reporting made newspaper readers engage with the events of war. Until she realized that letters to friends elicited far stronger identification. [more]

You OK?

A letter to Riga from the San Francisco Bay

For a European academic in California, the ubiquitous question "You OK?" typifies a self-help culture in which everybody becomes a therapist searching for a patient. [more]

Stuck in traffic

Calling sex trafficking "modern-day slavery" is all too easy, says Tim Ochser, who helped a British film crew make a documentary on the issue in Latvia. [more]

The heritage of Madame Sevigny

Epistolary style and conversation in France

The letters of Madame Sevigny epitomized the seventeenth-century "salon" style, deplored by Stendhal as affected and pretentious, and inaugurated a literary genre. [more]

The joy of small places

For Latvians, the joy in finding themselves in a work of international literature often outweighs any offence at being portrayed as troublemakers and hangers-on. As long as authors get their facts right, that is. [more]

Breakfast with brontosaurus

An interview with Harold Bloom

"Partly from encountering wisdom, I have to say I have no wisdom." American literary critic Harold Bloom talks to Latvian journal Rigas Laiks about his twenty-ninth book, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? [more]

One or two words on the sticky subject of pornography

Confronted with amateur pornography, Tim Ochser finds he has eyes only for the home furnishings. How life has become a "grotesque parody" of pornography. [more]

Memory of evil, enticement to good

An interview with Tzvetan Todorov

In France, communism has positive associations with the Resistance movement. Not so for eastern Europeans, who must bring their own experiences to bear in the European discussion, says the Bulgarian philosopher. [Italian and Hungarian versions added] [more]

The sad story of how "K" became "C"

Plastic ferns, ABBA, and intoxicated Russians: on the seedy charms of the old-fashioned Latvian kafejnica. [more]

A million for a minute

Stories about the guru of psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan (1901-1981), and his daughter, Judith Miller. [more]

Letter from home

On the way Americans see themselves -- with feelings of solitude, dissatisfaction, and confusion. [more]

The archipelago sunk in memory

Anne Applebaum's book on the history of the Gulag invites one to reflect on the meaning of emptiness: in history and in one's head. [more]

In the labyrinth

A Riga suburb called Zolitude makes Tim Ochser reflect on the philosophical realities of a life in the labyrinth. [more]

The quantum absence of the nose

Robert Tenzing Thurman speaks to Arnis Ritups

American Buddhist and father of Uma Thurman talks about his views of enlightenment. [more]