All posts tagged: Nina McConigley

Friday Reads: June 2015

By JACQUELYN POPE, NINA MCCONIGLEY, JANE CAMPBELLLORI OSTLUND, DIANA BABINEAU, OLIVIA WOLFGANG-SMITH

Photography, science, geo-politics, instruction manuals, and a good Springsteen song—this month we’re reading works of literature with foundations in other art forms. We’re also recommending a memoir, flash fiction, linked short stories, a novel, and a poetry collection—the greatest genre spread of any Friday Reads installment since the feature’s inception. So this June, as we move into summer at last, join us at The Common in trying something new, something varied, something complex. Spice up your reading list and genre-bend your life!

Recommended:

Hold Still by Sally Mann, A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin, The Spark and the Drive by Wayne Harrison, Barefoot Dogs by Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, Itself by Rae Armantrout.

Friday Reads: June 2015
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Jesse Owens, Mr. Harris, and Me

By NINA McCONIGLEY

This is how my mother tells it. Jesse Owens taught her to run. I am thirteen. I have just come back from track practice. I have no skill at anything athletic. But junior high for me has been a series of attempts to assimilate. That year in the yearbook, there isn’t a club I’m not in—Chess Club, Stamp Collecting, French Club, Honors Society—and because track is the only sport you do not have to try out for, they’ll take anyone, I sit in the front row of the photo, a dark spot in the expanse of white faces.

Jesse Owens, Mr. Harris, and Me
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Mom’s Dal

By NINA McCONIGLEY

From the kitchen of Nirmala Swamidoss McConigley
Handed down to her daughter, Nina McConigley

Dal
1 cup of red lentils (washed well)
3–4 cups water
2 tbsp oil
1 onion
6–7 cloves garlic (cut in two)
1/4 tsp asafetida (sometimes called hing), you get this at Indian stores
1/4 tsp turmeric
Jalapeño
1 tomato (add at the end)
Salt to taste
Fresh cilantro for garnish

Mom’s Dal
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