Mark Dery

2 weeks ago | religiondispatches.org | Mark Dery

A grainy, jittery video has gone viral on social media. Duct-taped to a chair and goggle-eyed with fear, the hostage, a Dark MAGA tech bro, is petrified—and for good reason: the balaclava-clad terrorist behind him is gleefully revving a chainsaw inches from his neck. Inscribed on it, in ironic homage to the saw Elon Musk brandished at the 2025 CPAC conference, is the legend Viva la libertad, carajo (“Long live liberty, damn it”). Have you seen it?

3 weeks ago | 4columns.org | Mark Dery

Is a River Alive? Mark Dery Learning to speak riverine: Robert Macfarlane’s latest book endeavors to rewild our minds. Is a River Alive?, by Robert Macfarlane, W. W. Norton & Company, 374 pages, $31.99•   •   •What are a river’s pronouns?

Mar 7, 2025 | 4columns.org | Mark Dery

Caspar David Friedrich Mark Dery Finding symbolism and the self in the landscapes of nature: seventy-five works by the preeminent painter of German Romanticism. Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature, installation view. Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo: Richard Lee.

Feb 15, 2025 | washingtonpost.com | Mark Dery

Has there ever been a better time to read “Blood on Satan’s Claw”? The 1971 film of the same name, the first to be called “folk horror,” is now a novel by the movie’s screenwriter, Robert Wynne-Simmons. Folk horror is about the folk in the archetypal sense: small-town residents and rural villagers whose traditional values and old-fashioned ways, rooted in their close-knit communities, sense of place and ties to nature, are threatened by the arrival of outsiders — almost always city folk.

Oct 10, 2024 | 4columns.org | Mark Dery

Portraits in Life and Death Mark Dery Decadence and decay, freedom and friends: Peter Hujar’s 1976 photo book captures the utopia of dystopia. Portraits in Life and Death, by Peter Hujar, foreword by Benjamin Moser, introduction by Susan Sontag, Liveright, 100 pages, $75•   •   •Portraits in Life and Death is the only book Peter Hujar published in his lifetime.