For the last year and half, New Yorkers have been making the trek to Queens for a variety of reasons: a
desire to protect the natural environment, a longing
to lay their hands on outsized art supplies, and the
chance to save the green lining in their wallets if
not their streets.

The Department of Education has done a tremendous disservice to America’s children.

There is much to be upset about these days, as double-word triggers will attest: Haliburton’s contracts, Bennett’s slots, aircraft photo-ops, tax cuts. Even Mother Nature seems pissed off, serving up a reluctant spring on the heels of a dastardly winter war, hurling tractor-trailers across the Midwest, then springing for a lunar eclipse only to refuse to pull back the thick cloud curtain. Indeed, one need look no further than the pages of this publication to find reasons to spew invective, to rant, to rail.

In the May/June issue of the Brooklyn Rail, Cathy Nan Quinlan makes a glorious attempt to connect two painters, Vermeer and Clyfford Still, and a baked organic chicken.