The Rage over “Adolescence”
What disgusted a handful of people about one of the best recent shows on television—and what that reveals about us
Arts & Letters
Documentary on Artist Art Spiegelman Worth a Watch
There is much of interest in the documentary “Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse” about technique, layout, framing, visual style, and the burden of guilt in storytelling, because these things cannot do enough.
Why Pamela Paul Annoyed NYTimes Readers
We are both White ladies who want everybody to be polite and nice so we can go back to reading our book.
The Nominal Joys of a Discombobulated Text
‘Tristram Shandy’ and ‘Riddley Walker’ stand as scurrilous hold-outs, novels that experiment with form, juggle your expectations, and even jangle your nerves.
Remembering R.E.M. Explored by SLSO on Its One-Year Anniversary
Though St. Louis cannot claim the April 5 debut of “R.E.M. Explored” as the church in Athens can for the band itself, this performance featured a new sequence of the program that has become standard in subsequent concerts, not to mention the only time Mills’s compositions have been re-imagined by Marsh and Mallamud’s orchestrations and performed by a symphony orchestra on the iconic date of R.E.M.’s nativity.
Looking Hip in the Gaza Strip? My Useless Act of Indie-Rock Prophecy
Before the president of the United States publicly imagined the Gaza Strip as a hip Middle Eastern Riviera, I only ever told this story to mock myself at parties. It was one of my bits. It turns out I am a prophet, I would declare.
Do I Hate the Modern or Just What It Fails to Represent?
Finally, I confess...and realize what I have been missing.
How Roy Ayers Put Soul on “Nice”
Roy Ayers coasted on his unique sentiment and vibe. It was sublime, positive, and unfailingly warm and luminescent. What else would you expect a writer, any writer, to say about the musical talent who gave us the song “Everybody Loves The Sunshine”?
How Zelensky Might Channel Thucydides
It is anyone’s guess as to whether Ukrainian President Volodoymyr Zelensky has read ‘The History of the the Peloponnesian War,’ even if his words spill into realms that Thucydides, with his imperatives for the preservation of law and solidarity against violence and calamity, would recognize at once.
Most Points Wins
The goal is to make you feel slightly more virtuous, briefly. But why stop there? People are crazy, and times are strange.