Category: Culture

Emmett Till—Choose Your Own Adventure
by Patricia Smith | Feb 13, 2019 | Culture, PoetryThis month we begin a year of featuring dynamic American poets whose work often focuses on politics, race, injustice, fascism, war, and human rights, reminding us, as poet Ellen Hinsey asserts, that, “No individual poem can stop a war—that’s what diplomacy is supposed to do. But poetry is an independent ambassador for conscience: it answers […]

My Years With Mr. Shawn
by Jacob Brackman | Jan 27, 2019 | CultureDubbed the Gentle Despot of The New Yorker, William Shawn was the shy, strong-willed, nurturing and eccentric steward of America’s leading magazine and mentor to generations of the country’s most gifted writers. In this short account of his own time in Shawn’s orbit, written in January, 1993, the critic Jacob Brackman depicts Shawn’s unconditional support […]

On Bradley Cooper’s Surprising A Star is Born
by Cyrus Cassells | Jan 15, 2019 | CultureWhen Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Maine, a country headliner who’s “faded as his jeans,” and Lady Gaga’s working-class Ally (a fed-up waitress and fledgling singer-songwriter who moonlights in a drag bar) suddenly ignite in concert for the first time, the newly created song they perform, “Shallow,” is so lucid and expressive (the alcoholic Jackson sings, poignantly, […]

Demonic Glamour: On The Assassination Of Gianni Versace
by Cyrus Cassells | Dec 12, 2018 | Culture, TelevisionRather than offering standard gore and merely giving us the willies, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Ryan Murphy’s second installment of American Crime Story on the FX channel (now available on Amazon Prime Video and ITunes), is one of the rare serial killer dramas genuinely interested in sexual mores, complex character, spiky history, and salient […]

Judge Kavanaugh, I Feel For You
by Jules Feiffer | Nov 19, 2018 | Media, PoliticsStrip by Jules Feiffer. The Ghost Script, Jules’s new graphic novel, is just out. This piece originally ran in Tablet magazine, at tabletmag.com, and was reprinted with permission in the November issue of The Spectator.
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