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Trivial Pursuits
Inevitably and with curious necessity, the recitation of trivia turns to the subject of death-counts. This is because the death-count is the ne plus ultra of trivia: “how many people died there.”
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America’s Pastor Problem
The existence of these inflammatory sermons was portrayed as a news-event in itself, but for many Americans the real news should have been this: black people are not happy with America the way you’re happy with America.
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The Emperor’s New Museum
The utilitarian function of the museum as mere container has long been eclipsed by its function as signifying apparatus. On the one hand, the design of the interior is responsible for the terms of encounter with individual works of art. On the other hand, the shape of the exterior mediates and proclaims a role for…
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Anscombe Affair, Revisited
Many people have remarked upon the similarities between Emma Yates’ recent op-ed in the Prince, “Getting unlucky on Valentine’s day,” (published 2/22/08) and Francisco Nava’s infamous op-ed, “Princeton’s latex lies,” (published 11/7/07). Both take theatrical umbrage at the prevalence of a “hookup culture.” Both take aim at the imaginary misdeeds of university or student organizations:…
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You Want Schmaltz With That?
“Sufferance is the badge of all our tribe,” plead Shylock to the barrister, and indeed what characterizes Jewish history in the main is calamity and tribulation of a scope and cruelty so reckless and undreamt they seem enjoined from another universe. As Shylock suggests, extraordinary persecution is so far the only homage history has elected…
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Carrying the Fire
Every now and then there comes a book which is like an arrow shot into the heart of things because it has the power to redeem the fading, diffuse enterprise of bookselling and novel-gazing both, all the misbegotten hours spent in trains and libraries and the whole history of a form lately devolved into the…
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Escaping Reality
Jean Baudrillard was a poor philosopher and a poorer sociologist. As a writer, he was inconsistent and cracked-out – as much inclined to the output of turgid rivers of prose clotted with effluvial jargon as he was to effervescent plunges of galvanic insight. As a theorist, he was one of the principal authors of what…
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Grindhouse! Grindhouse! Grindhouse!
In a word: fucking awesome. Three hours and 11 minutes of sheer glory in the form of people killing people and saying cool shit and blowing stuff up. Did I mention zombies and girl power? One darksome eve we pilgrims five set out upon a long road of black asphalt and minor tribulation until at…
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The Passion of Jack Bauer
All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war.” -Walter Benjamin Nobody can accuse Jack Bauer of not having done enough for his country. He has killed more people than polio and saved more lives than Jonas Salk. He visits enemy torture-chambers more often than he visits his dentist. He has tortured innumerable…
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A Portrait of the Terrorist as a Young Man
Many works of art have emerged in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks as part of the collective struggle to commemorate, understand, and situate them within the rapidly coalescing frieze of our shared memory. Thanks to the plethora of novels sprung up in the ashes of disaster, we are now privy to such worthwhile phenomena…
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The Vagina Dialogues
Before I launch into abstract, quasi-provable thoughts as to why the Vagina Monologues rocks my socks, I’ll put forth two concrete arguments for why this show, opening February 15th, is unique, funny, and well worth seeing.
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RIP Augusto Pinochet
Frankly, I hope he rots in hell. There is no figure more odious than the man who supplants democracy with tyranny. Augusto Pinochet sailed into power on the crest of the military coup d�etat that threw democratic President Salvador Allende out of office and into a coffin.