The Birth of Bad Taste The Birth of Bad Taste
Why Italian Mannerists like Rosso Fiorentino were painting’s first avant-garde.
Jul 2, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Walking Stick Walking Stick
We didn’t protest. It’s not like you’re going to get anything from anybody. They don’t have it either. And the new system moved pretty quick— I had found a feral walking stick stripped from a tree by a new June shower nursing trumpets of crumbled lilac & held her scarlet eye on the outpatient pharmacy line— If the breadth of the difficulty rejects one ardent name I may still call the hour a phasmid or phantom freely stealing my heart from the other needs that burn it.
Jul 2, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Joel Felix
Sweeter Than the Sweet Sweeter Than the Sweet
For the Staple Singers and Stax Records, political engagement flowed from an artistic renaissance.
Jul 2, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Cohen
India’s Missing Women India’s Missing Women
Why does the belief that women are safest when secluded still hold sway in India?
Jun 18, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Gaiutra Bahadur
Chelsea Dreams Chelsea Dreams
Artists have become the shock troops of gentrification, even at the Chelsea Hotel.
Jun 18, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Richard Kreitner
Generations and Repetitions Generations and Repetitions
The story of country music is not love and happiness but love and work.
Jun 18, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover
No Escape No Escape
A new batch of teen films deliver their blows and soften them in a single gesture.
Jun 18, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
James Joyce’s Untamable Power James Joyce’s Untamable Power
Censors thought it dirty and rebellious, but what makes Ulysses radical is its dramatization of the unending conflict between good and evil.
Jun 3, 2014 / Books & the Arts / James Longenbach
Free to Choose? Free to Choose?
How Americans have become tyrannized by the culture’s overinvestment in choice.
Jun 3, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Sophia Rosenfeld
The Best Years of Their Lives The Best Years of Their Lives
Why World War II offered Hollywood directors an escape into reality.
Jun 3, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Noah Isenberg