[contextly_auto_sidebar id="fhqVn6TOLjpnLFsHnV7qvLOILjagWywW"] A NEW book of poems, Monetized, looks at our new Gilded Age, with its staggering extremes of wealth and poverty. The book is written by the New York journalist Alissa Quart, who has written three books, the most recent of which is Republic of Outsiders. The New Yorker's Joshua Rothman has a smart profile of Quart on the … [Read more...]
Archives for 2015
Happy Birthday, Billie Holiday
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="bE6xtH54tzETQjjE7nXEoXhm2A8BNjAw"] TODAY would be the 100th birthday of one of the greatest musicians in history. I've been watching this 1957 video of "Fine and Mellow" for more than 20 years now and continue to love it. There are so many great musicians on this track, but let me point out that Holiday's greatest-even musical partner Lester Young, plays tenor … [Read more...]
The Collapsing Fortunes of the Club Deejay
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Am8vEARmW7HozjXX5GcmuHgcQEc0fAD8"] WHEN people try to destroy my argument about a crisis in culture, one of their most common tacks is to suggest that I'm describing just the fading of an old world -- classical music, literary writing, print journalism and so on -- that is being eclipsed as a new, more democratic pop-culture-driven world rises, bestowing its … [Read more...]
“How the 1 Percent Always Wins”: Interview
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="TzbKntNFyZcSQHgIrdjr9IhXNfnnrZ7q"] A timely and engaging new book by the labor historian Steve Fraser, The Age of Acquiescence, contrasts the way Americans responded to the first Gilded Age -- with protests, class rhetoric, even violence -- to the situation today, where movements like Occupy come and go and populist energy is directed not against capital but … [Read more...]
What Happens When a Newsroom Dies?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="xufOwYj5n0XdtGNHU7t2P2ob7klfXyeT"] THERE's a poignant piece up on The Guardian about a photojournalist who has tracked the collapse of American newspapers, especially the once-great Philadelphia Inquirer. Here's the story's opening graph: In the past decade, as a percentage, more print journalists have lost their jobs than workers in any other significant … [Read more...]
Revisiting the Music of Elliott Smith
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="pSiNhPLxRicBfP3m18tXkhFjYiIy7Uxc"] THE other day I almost froze as I heard a song coming out of the radio that sounded both fresh and eerily familiar. It turned out to be a song from the new Elliott Smith tribute by Seth Avett -- guitarist for the rustic, North Carolina-based Avett Brothers -- and the indie singer-songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield. The song -- … [Read more...]
Guest Columnist: Has Our Inner Child Won?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="ZZ6HZnil37V095gDDTpaRNbulixzlHOn"] Here's the latest from our sometime guest columnist. This one will make some noise, I expect. With no further ado: WHAT PRICE SAFETY? By Lawrence Christon A mad, obsessive ship’s captain destroys everyone on board, save one, in his vengeful mission to kill a whale. An unhinged barber slits the throats of his patrons and … [Read more...]
What Makes a City Beautiful ?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="krjjjXo4RZIvrWEAQUieiD1G6Y9vbRUb"] IT'S all just a matter of opinion, isn't it? Nobody can agree on aesthetics, right? The Anglo-Swiss writer Alain de Botton demolishes these myths and others in a video on "How to Make an Attractive City." Slate has a fascinating story on the topic, and breaks out the writer's six criteria for urban beauty. By the part that … [Read more...]
The Horatio Alger Myth: Amanda Palmer
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="81zgKnkFndNWR6ZZyt0SEf1pDSPSHyWh"] DO musicians and artists need an equitable structure around them, or can they make it by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps? The latter point of view has been promoted -- perhaps incessantly -- by onetime Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer, a talented musician and canny businesswoman who has become a Horatio Alger hero for the … [Read more...]
“In Praise of Difficulty”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="b8rJJnGCXKiH3M8zWOVGbX2BXfYXXJBs"] DO we need cultural seriousness, intellectual contemplation, works of depth and complexity? I've been hearing for most of my life -- I came of age in the '80s -- that we don't. Just asking the question got you branded, when I was a kid, a sissy or a bookworm; now it gets you called a snob. But a very fine, reasonably long … [Read more...]