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.
It’s like one of those Twilight Zone epiphanies that arrives midway through an episode to thwart the lately begotten hopes and dreams of whatever poor fool thought he caught a lucky break or maybe had a good thing going. So … Read More
Photographs are unquestionably deemed to be accurate representations of the real; whereas a painting is inherently considered to be a fictive interpretation of its subject, a photograph simply reports its subject as it is. Or does it? How is this … Read More
I. “Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde” at the Met Investing Vollard with the almost statesmanlike title, “Patron of the Avant-Garde” is pretty generous for someone Paul Gauguin once called “the worst kind of crocodile.” Maecenas he … Read More
“Killing the Angel in the House,” wrote Virginia Woolf, “is part of the occupation of a woman writer.” This particular epithet had come to encapsulate the Victorian stereotype of sexual frigidity, otherworldly purity, and picture-perfect domesticity which was the ego-ideal for a century of unhappy women. Joyce Carol Oates has taken Woolf’s literary dictum to the next level: her Angels are not themselves killed; they themselves kill.
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 of universal human interest as the tone-poetic hi-jinks of the chattering classes in the months preceding the big event, as in Claire Messud’s respectable novel The Emperor’s Children, and the annoyingly precious musings of the insufferably earnest, as in Jonathan Safran Foer’s not-so-respectable novella Extremely Loud and Incredible Close.
A few years ago the song “Fortunate Son” was used in a commercial for Wrangler Jeans. To many this seemed yet another belated obituary for the 60’s, yet another testament to the casual victory of the Establishment. After all, here … Read More
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: Nava objects to the distribution of condoms by University Health Services (UHS), while Yates objects to the cavalier advertisement of the availability of condoms through posters circulated by the Sexual Health Advisors (SHA).
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 … Read More
The Morning After Virginia said she would make the breakfast herself. For it was a beautiful London morning in June. She kicked back the covers and looked at Cady Stanton’s luscious ass. Smelled faintly of honeysuckle. Or was that patchouli? … Read More
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 … Read More