Cannery Row has been one of my favorite books ever since I first read it as a teenager. John Steinbeck’s gentle depiction of Depression-era ne’er-do-wells in Monterey, California doesn’t typically appear on lists of great American novels (and Steinbeck himself is better known for works like The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of…
Walker Percy’s “The Loss of the Creature”
(An excerpt) Every explorer names his island Formosa, “beautiful.” To him it is beautiful because, being first, he has access to it and can see it for what it is. But to no one else is it ever as beautiful — except the rare man who manages to recover it, who knows that it has…
9 Outtakes from Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem
1) On New York City It is often said that New York is a city for only the very rich and the very poor. It is less often said that New York is also, at least for those of us who came there from somewhere else, a city for only the very young. 2) On…
Why Do We Still Buy Mass-Produced Souvenirs?
Cultural criticism: Rolf Potts on tourism, kitsch, and the eternal tchotchke. Excepted from his 2018 book Souvenir.
Abd el-Kader and the Massacre of Damascus
By Rany Jazayerli The year was 1860, and the world was, as usual, in upheaval. In China, the Second Opium War was coming to an end. America was preparing itself for major surgery, in the form of the Civil War, that would finally cure the young nation of its congenital defect of slavery. And in the…
Literature of Desire: The 1976 Sears Christmas Wish Book
Cultural criticism: The Sears catalog might well be considered a great work of American literature, having influenced the syntax of advertising, transformed mail-order commerce, and catalyzed America’s (decidedly democratic) language of desire.
Six 1962 Daniel Boorstin Quotes That Foresaw Events In 2016
In the wake of the 2016 presidential election, media pundits have pinpointed a number of seeming prophets — philosopher Richard Rorty, Supreme Court justice David Souter, the TV show Black Mirror — that anticipated the conditions of the election before they happened. To me, the most salient prognostication of 2016 comes from historian Daniel J. Boorstin’s 1962 book The…
Remixing Reality
Literary criticism/collage essay: In his literary manifesto Reality Hunger, David Shields argues for artistic plagiarism and the end of traditional narrative. Rolf’s response — embedded in a story about getting drugged robbed overseas — appropriates its own flavor of plagiarism to counter Shields’ argument.
The Joy of Reading Graham Greene
Interview: Rolf talks with travel writer Pico Iyer about his book “The Man Within My Head,” and how art can help us identify parts of ourselves we never otherwise could have articulated.
Paul Theroux on Blogging, Travel Writing, and ‘Three Cups of Tea’
Interview: Rolf talks with the legendary travel author about technology, traveling light, reportorial accuracy, notions of home, and the “Tao of Travel.”
Canon Fodder
Essay/Reportage: When allegations surfaced that parts of Greg Mortenson’s memoir “Three Cups of Tea” had been fabricated, reports noted that the book is “required reading” for U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Various other branches of the military promote titles like “Freakonomics” and “Starship Troopers.” Why is this the case, and what do these non-military books offer to combat-bound soldiers?