ESSAYS offers perspectives on a given subject—typically in literature, film, or the plastic and performing arts—sometimes couched as reviews, sometimes based upon notes in the journals.

In a non-scholarly fashion, I am inspired by the origin of the word “essay” in the French essayer based on the Late Latin exagium (“weighing”) for which the Old French noun was essai (“trial”). I like to think this practice involves more than mere opinionating and that none will be presented as the last word: I am simply trying to articulate some aspect of my response to the subject treated. Some of these pieces have already been published in print. I am pleased to be able to “public” the unpublished reviews written in the spirit of appreciation and evaluation rather than negative criticism.