An Argument With Instruments: On Charles Mingus An Argument With Instruments: On Charles Mingus
How a jazz artist’s relationship to black identity gave his music its stormy weather.
Sep 17, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Adam Shatz
First Saturday of Summer in Virginia First Saturday of Summer in Virginia
Day lilies dotting the ditches orange, between tilting mailboxes, amid blue chicory and swales of yellow buttercups. Northwest on Jefferson Highway, alert for bright yellow signs printed YARD SALE, freight train clanging on my right. To follow arrows onto gravel driveways through the woods to arrive at run-down trailers or two-story homes with wraparound porches, wide front lawns and tables of children’s clothing, glassware, games, dolls, obsolete electronics. All around, blue tarps on wet grass with bags of worn quilts and sheets, paired shoes and boots, jeans laid out like Civil War soldiers piled in an open grave. To drive from sale to sale as the sun climbs the sky, blue as Hollywood eyes, coffee in a GO cup. To end at the Art & Craft Show at St. Jude’s, where men with orange flags direct parking across the street from mounds of mulch, gravel, sand, compost. To watch a teen tap dance to the beat of a jangly country song, swirling her flared skirt.
Sep 17, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Joan Mazza
Salaam Cinema: On Mohsen Makhmalbaf Salaam Cinema: On Mohsen Makhmalbaf
An Iranian director’s ongoing meditations on the nature of illusion and reality, truth and consequences.
Sep 17, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Adina Hoffman
The Long Goodbye: On Steven Soderbergh The Long Goodbye: On Steven Soderbergh
Hollywood’s wonkiest director hasn’t stopped working. He’s finding new problems to solve—and toying with us again.
Sep 10, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Akiva Gottlieb
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Robert Neer’s Napalm: An American Biography; Juliette Volcler’s Extremely Loud: Sound as a Weapon
Sep 10, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Peter C. Baker
Great Perturbations: On George Packer Great Perturbations: On George Packer
The Unwinding is a fine-grained account of economic collapse that runs aground on causeless abstractions.
Sep 10, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Chris Lehmann
Walter Mosley’s Alien Script Walter Mosley’s Alien Script
The author opens up about his latest art exhibition, magic, failure and unexpected success.
Sep 6, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Fatima Bhojani
Jester and Priest: On Leszek Kolakowski Jester and Priest: On Leszek Kolakowski
How the great Polish philosopher went from being an anticlerical scourge to an apostle of John Paul II.
Sep 4, 2013 / Books & the Arts / John Connelly
More of Less More of Less
Thomas Hirschhorn’s unmonumental monument to egalitarianism and Antonio Gramsci.
Sep 4, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Summer’s Fall: White House Down Summer’s Fall: White House Down
The happy ending to Hollywood’s summer: not guy gets girl but guy gets job.
Sep 4, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover