New Essay by Liam Callanan

A new essay by faculty member Liam Callanan appears online in Medium:

In Paris, tracing the path of ‘The Red Balloon’

Seconds into my first attempt to play Hangman with my then-young daughter, I suddenly saw the game’s gruesome stakes for what they were: guess wrong, and see your dad draw a man’s neck snapping. So on the fly, I invented the game of Sleeping Man, his gallows now a reading lamp, the whole of him slowly obscured as incorrect guesses led to sheets, a blanket, a pillow, slippers. Years later, my daughter found the real game in an activity book, and then she found me. Dad, she said, eyes wide, our game? He doesn’t sleep—he dies.

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