Editor's Message
Running Local
For at least the next few issues, my column no longer will appear on this page. Instead, an expanded version of it will be found in the Local section. As its title—“City Notes”—suggests, the column will focus on life here on the homefront. Rest assured that from Afghanistan to Arizona, the many senseless wars being waged in strange and forbidding lands will get their due as well.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Listening In: Version and Inversion
By Scott GuttermanJUL-AUG 2020 | Music
In this column last month, for a piece called Vision and Revision, I concluded with a poem by Rumi (The Guest House) about the inevitability of change, and the need to accept it. The story struck a fairly optimistic note. But if I am honest, my predominant feeling lately has been one of dread. To open the newspaper is to unleash a cascade of barely imaginable stories. Yet how can we be surprised when we knew? The answer: We dont want to know.
Inflation. Government Policy, and Profits—an Exchange
NOV 2020 | Field Notes
Paul Matticks article on the demise of deficit hawkishness in the October Field Notes stimulated the following letter of criticism, for which we are grateful, as we are for any public discussion of issues raised in the section.
Side Issues
By George RushOCT 2020 | Critics Page
With the notable exception of the brilliant Beverly Fishman, who encouraged us to question all forms of painting, my education didnt really consider the sides of paintings. They were painted whitethat ever-problematic stand-in for neutralityor stained by action on the front, but more often simply ignored.
Go Forth
By Kaneza SchaalDEC 20-JAN 21 | Critics Page
My father died in Burundi. Everyone brought their own version of him to the funeral. At the burial ceremony, as part of a ritualized grieving process, I was struck by the continuum of processing and performing death, and the intimacy between Black people and death around the world.