A Website of the Radical Imagination
George Trow sent us the following squib lampooning Tina Brown and her circle as he was composing “Is Dan Mad?” for First back in 1999. It shouldn’t be confused with his more serious “media studies,” but it’s not quite a throwaway either. Trow’s New York Times obituary gave Tina Brown the last word when it … Read more
Ten years ago Armond White surveyed the state of “the movies” and film criticism in his “First of the Month” piece, “Things Done Changed: The McDonald’s Theory of Moviegoing.” White began with a quote from Pauline Kael’s classic 1968 essay, “Trash, Art and the Movies” – “Can one demonstrate that trash desensitizes us, that it … Read more
A few weeks ago Michael Berube emailed me evidence I’d made a mistake in my foreword to First of the Year: 2010. I’d brought up an unflattering story about Paul Berman that Berube had touched on in his book, The Left at War, and I’d asserted (in a parenthesis) Berube had been unaware Berman had … Read more
Three Responses to Obama’s Cairo Speech. Indispensable Man By Bernard Avishai Immediately after President Obama’s speech, Israeli television interviewed a strapping West Bank settler: “It was very professional,” he said, “very well crafted. It focused brilliantly on the rights of man. But he also quoted the Talmud; and if he read that, then he knows … Read more
We asked our writers and readers for their reflections on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. Here are 13 ways of looking at that day. Death from Above By Hans Koning The first truth about 9/11 is its uniqueness. That is to say that in the early morning of September 11, 2001, it would be a … Read more
Retort Afflicted Powers: Capital & Spectacle in a New Age of War. New Edition, 2006. Verso Timothy Clark is indeed one of our most distinguished art historians. He holds the George C. & Helen N. Pardee Chair and is Professor of Modern Art at the University of California, Berkeley. In a press release dated February … Read more
“It’s Too Soon”—that cowardly phrase planted in the public’s mind by the mainstream media—keeps Oliver Stone’s movie World Trade Center from the people who might especially appreciate its value. The phrase seems designed to control popular sentiment while Stone endeavors to particularize and analyze the huge mix of personal and political feelings that have mounted … Read more