Latest news with #HanifAbdurraqib
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Columbus Ranks as One of the Best U.S. Destinations for Summer Travel & Invites Visitors to See Why
Columbus Book Festival Unofficial Galaxies at COSI Columbus, Ohio, May 22, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Columbus is road trip-ready and rising to the top of travelers' lists in 2025. As Americans plan shorter getaways and embrace the return of the road trip, The Wall Street Journal notes a clear trend: drivable, experience-rich cities are in. With national nods from AFAR and Travel + Leisure as one of the best places to visit this summer, it's clear Columbus should be on your summer travel list. 'Summer is our busiest season for a reason,' said Sarah Townes, ECI, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer at Experience Columbus and the Greater Columbus Sports Commission. 'There's always something happening with festivals nearly every weekend celebrating the arts, music, culture, books and more. Columbus provides that perfect mix of a city escape that blends energy and ease. And with 81 percent of overnight visitors returning, it's clear that once people experience Columbus, they come back again and again.' Travelers will find Columbus exciting and accessible. Getting to Columbus is easy as Ohio's capital city is within a day's drive or one-hour flight for more than half the U.S. population. Once here, visitors can take advantage of the city's free experiential trails, from ones celebrating live music to Columbus-style pizza, and the 3-Day Columbus Attractions Pass to save more than 20% at top attractions. A Destination for Book Lovers Literary travel is a major trend in 2025, and Columbus is the perfect place for bibliophiles. Celebrated authors such as Hanif Abdurraqib, Maggie Smith and R.L. Stine all hail from Columbus. The late humorist and cartoonist James Thurber also called Columbus home. Visitors can tour his house, now the city's literary arts hub with ongoing programming ranging from writing workshops to author talks and more. The Columbus Book Festival presented by the Columbus Metropolitan Library returns July 12–13 Downtown at the Main Library and Topiary Park. Headliners include renowned authors such as Amal El-Mohtar (The River Has Roots), Gregg Hurwitz (Nemesis), Anna Todd (The Last Sunrise) and Victoria Christopher Murray (Harlem Rhapsody). With more than 120 authors, panel discussions, indie creators and local food, this free festival is a must for book lovers this summer. Summer Festival Season Summer festival season kicks off June 6-8, with the Columbus Arts Festival, recognized as one of the best in the country by USA Today 10Best. More than 400,000 people are expected to attend the annual celebration of the arts. Also in June, Stonewall Columbus Pride ranks among the top celebrations in the country, recognized by Condé Nast Traveler and U.S. News & World Report. The Pride March returns June 14, drawing more than 700,000 visitors to the region and making it one of the largest in the Midwest. Just a few weeks later, the celebration continues with Red, White & BOOM!—named one of the country's most festive Fourth of July events by AFAR—bringing more than 400,000 people Downtown for the Midwest's largest fireworks show. Throughout the summer enjoy other annual festivals and events, including Jazz & Rib Fest, Festival Latino and CBUS Soul® Fest, which is expanding to two days Aug. 15-16, 2025, in Bicentennial Park and celebrates Columbus' vibrant Black culture, music, history and soul. This year's headliners include Eric Benét, Mojoflo, Raheem DeVaughn and more. New Restaurants from Top Chefs Recognized as one of the best food cities in the country by Condé Nast Traveler, Columbus' culinary scene is heating up this summer with two highly anticipated new restaurant openings. Chef Andrew Smith and Devoney Mills, the duo behind the acclaimed Roy's Avenue Supper Club, are opening their first brick-and-mortar restaurant. ISLA, a 14-seat, reservation-only spot in Merion Village will offer a seasonal tasting menu. The intimate space will operate three nights a week with staggered seatings and a 'Chef's Counter' experience on Thursdays. Guests can expect local, seasonal ingredients, and a communal approach to fine dining. James Beard Award semifinalist for Best Chef: Great Lakes BJ Lieberman and Bronwyn Haines, the team behind Chapman's Eat Market and Ginger Rabbit, are introducing Metsi's, a modern Italian concept opening in the Short North Arts District. Metsi's promises a fresh, playful take on Italian fare with a warm, welcoming vibe. To learn more about all there is to see and do in Columbus this summer, visit About Columbus Did you know Columbus is a top 10 best big city in the U.S. and one of the best food cities in the country according to Condé Nast Traveler, one of the top places to go in 2025 according to AFAR and one of the best solo trips for women in the U.S. and around the world by Glamour? yes, Columbus. Columbus is bold, welcoming and forward-thinking. Home to world-class museums and attractions, historic and unique neighborhoods like the Short North Arts District, historic German Village and the Arena District — where four professional sports teams live on one street — Columbus has so much to offer. Visitors can learn what awaits in the 15th largest city in the country and Ohio's capital by visiting and following Experience Columbus on Instagram: @ExperienceColumbus, Facebook: @ExperienceColumbus, Threads: @ExperienceColumbus and TikTok: @ExperienceColumbus. Attachments Columbus Book Festival Unofficial Galaxies at COSI CONTACT: Leah Berger, APR Experience Columbus 614-222-6145 lberger@ in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
New York Times
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In This Queer Sports Novel, Basketball Is Both Desire and Destruction
In his 2024 book 'There's Always This Year,' the writer Hanif Abdurraqib describes tempering his friends' optimism as the Cleveland Cavaliers headed into Game 5 of the N.B.A. finals. The team was down 3-1, and though his fellow Cavs fans were holding out for a comeback, Abdurraqib had already accepted defeat. 'I prefer being accelerated to the front row of my undoing,' he writes. That line hovered in my mind as I read 'A Sharp Endless Need,' the second novel by Marisa Crane (who now goes by Mac), not only because Abdurraqib is quoted in the book's epigraph, or because both authors write (deftly, ruinously) about basketball. The echo was in the self-conviction: the athlete and the fan, chasing the game to exquisite heartbreak. 'A Sharp Endless Need' follows the star point guard Mack Morris, a high school senior in small-town Pennsylvania in 2004. Reeling after the sudden death of her father and hounded by college scouts, Mack is primed for disaster when a transfer student, Liv Cooper, joins her team as shooting guard. The two instantly become enmeshed, both on and off the court, in the kind of obsessive, ravenous friendship that only two closeted teenagers could have. The question is whether the relationship will send Mack to new heights or fuel her devastation. In a tight 250 pages, Crane's writing drives forward hard and fast. They mix their staccato sentences with strategic bursts of tender lyricism. Crane, who played college ball, describes Mack's games with an insider's fluency, bringing readers into the minute-by-minute drama on the court. But knowledge of the sport isn't required to understand the novel; all you need is a familiarity with loving something to the point of pain. 'As long as I had the game, I would be OK,' Mack thinks. 'There would be a place for me that existed outside of human curses like attraction and desire.' These human curses, along with scourges of disappointment and unrealized selves, fill Mack's world, from washed-up coaches and dissatisfied parents to teenagers wrestling with forbidden wants. In Crane's hands, Mack's account of this confusing period as a teenager is deeply affecting: She's too consumed with the brightness and immediacy of Liv to engage with her deeper wounds. She chases away her anxiety with alcohol, drugs and punishing drills, careening toward everything but what she wants most intimately. She watches longing unravel everyone around her, and she keeps playing, funneling her frustration into the game, accelerating to her own undoing. From the front row, we can't tear our eyes from the vortex of passion between Mack and Liv. As Crane writes it, sports are a vessel for desire. They're erotic, an excuse to shield lust and the means by which it's played out. On the court, Mack and Liv have the unstoppable chemistry of two ambitious athletes whose greatness coaxes out the best in each other. Outside the game, they toe the line between friendship and something more, with their locker room showers and ice baths and late-night AIM conversations. Together they're vital, insatiable, inseparable, undeniable, yet always avoiding the truth of their attraction. We keep watching them because, like any devoted sports lover, we can't help wondering if they might pull out a win. But Crane's final play is an unexpectedly hopeful question: Is losing really the end? Most of the book focuses on the misery and destruction of desire, but despite its title, 'A Sharp Endless Need' offers the possibility that unsatisfied wanting does not always have to cut and curse, at least not endlessly. We give it the power to destroy us when we deny it or repress it. Maybe, with time and understanding, unmet desire can simply be an L in the column. Good game.
