Arts and Entertainment

Our Words, Our Selves

Our Words, Our Selves Our Words, Our Selves

Is our language broken and suddenly in need of repair?

Dec 4, 2014 / Books & the Arts / E. Ethelbert Miller

Blaming the Victim, Excusing the Powerful: What Real Institutional Media Bias Looks Like

Blaming the Victim, Excusing the Powerful: What Real Institutional Media Bias Looks Like Blaming the Victim, Excusing the Powerful: What Real Institutional Media Bias Looks Like

Eric on this week’s concerts and Reed on how, from Bill Cosby’s victims to drone strikes, the media refuse to protect the powerless.

Dec 2, 2014 / Blog / Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson

Plugged Into the Socket of Life

Plugged Into the Socket of Life Plugged Into the Socket of Life

Behind Richard Pryor’s jokes and barbs was a man yearning to be free.

Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Scott Saul

The Osprey The Osprey

or sea-eagle, what the guidebook says is white, grayish brown, and “possessed of weak eye- masks” in its non-migratory island instance, is blue. Blue, riding thermal bands so low over the water it picks up the water’s color, reticulate tarsi tipping the light crests; and picks up one of the silver fish cutting the surface there, so the fish is blue, too, flapping-gone- slack in the grasp of its claws—as only the owl shares an outer reversible toe-talon, turned out for such clutching; as the water, in turn, picks up the sky- depth reflective blue sent down from ages beyond, into which the osprey lifts now without a least turning of wing-chord though “they are able to bend the joint in their wing to shield their eyes from the light”; what I mean is, by the time I tell you this it’s gone: fish-and-bird, this “bone-breaker,” brown or gray “diurnal raptor,” back into the higher trades. Someday, too, this blue—

Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / David Baker

Transmission Transmission

  So he who strongly feels, behaves.        —Marianne Moore You find in an alley the mouthpiece of a flute. Gossip alone makes music and suddenly from the pines the birds all fly away. You are devoted to giving clear meaning to one movement. The water in the fountain. Down the fountain. Over it. The prayer chapel but its brick bench. Magnolias in almost bloom. The failure to believe in mathematics is a failure of emotion— you have spent all of your free time. Choral directors describe the torso in terms of the muscles of sound. Your wife paints your two-year-old’s fingernails and the two-year-old says, toes too! Sitting next to an anthill feels like this. They work so hard. And for so little. For salvation. This is the mystery. This is forgiveness.

Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Gary L. McDowell

Imitations of Life

Imitations of Life Imitations of Life

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing as a creature of secrets in The Imitation Game.

Nov 25, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Remembering Mike Nichols

Remembering Mike Nichols Remembering Mike Nichols

Hamilton Fish remembers legendary film director and creative force behind 'The Graduate', Mike Nichols.

Nov 20, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Hamilton Fish

Post-Midterm Political Coverage of GOP Extremism Fits the Definition of Media Absurdity

Post-Midterm Political Coverage of GOP Extremism Fits the Definition of Media Absurdity Post-Midterm Political Coverage of GOP Extremism Fits the Definition of Media Absurdity

Eric on this week in concerts and new music releases and Reed on how the mainstream press is always trying to tell the same (false) story about the Republican Party.

Nov 17, 2014 / Blog / Eric Alterman and Reed Richardson

More ‘Wild Tales’: An Interview With Graham Nash

More ‘Wild Tales’: An Interview With Graham Nash More ‘Wild Tales’: An Interview With Graham Nash

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer explains why climate change is the overriding issue of our time, talks at length about his relationship with Joni Mitchell and discusses life with D...

Nov 14, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman

Grim Reapers

Grim Reapers Grim Reapers

Drones have taken on a life of their own in popular culture.

Nov 11, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Jenna Krajeski

x