The Unbearable Likeness of Being

I felt super proud of myself when I made it all the way to page 3, technically page 1, of Christa Parravani’s memoir her before I Googled “christa parravani.” Parravani, as she immediately reveals in the book, is a photographer whose identical twin sister is dead. But I wanted to know: Was the creepily captivating cover photo—of two women identically dressed as goth-chic Snow Whites—actually the author and her sister, Cara, before her death? Was the photo taken by the author herself? I found Parravani’s website and compared her publicity photos with the women on the cover. Yes, this was Parravani

politics Sept/Oct/Nov 2012

The Address Book

IN 1983, ARTIST SOPHIE CALLE found an address book on a Paris street. Before returning it, she photocopied its contents, called the people listed, and asked to interview them about the book’s owner, whom she calls Pierre D. “I will try to discover who he is without ever meeting him,” she writes. Calle’s pursuit struck some—including Pierre—as a privacy invasion worthy of public retribution. He threatened to sue Libération, the French newspaper that ran the serialized interviews, and he backed off only when they published nude photos of Calle. She agreed not to publish The Address Book while