A Website of the Radical Imagination
Questlove says it all well. American hip-hop is usually based on imitation, and it is meant to produce artists who are users of the existing tradition, not creators. And because of that, black culture in general—which has defaulted into hip-hop—is no longer perceived as an interesting vanguard, as a source of potential disruption or a … Read more
Sure, I’ll yuck it up with the press about my novel, Oasis of Love, but the truth is if it wasn’t as good as Jonathan Franzen it was at least no worse than Jonathan Safran Foer, that cocksucker, vegetarian, limp-wrist, he’s never saved hundreds of Yazidis on a hill, he’s never bombed the shit out … Read more
The unreliable narrator is a notable feature of the modern novel. The sophisticated reader is expected to pick up clues (planted by the novelist as distinguished from the narrator) in order to correct whatever false impressions he or she receives from the narration. The novelist forgoes the privilege of omniscient narration to awaken the reader … Read more
What follows is a small classic of reportage on the struggle against oil and gas companies who are trashing Louisiana’s wetlands and spawning toxic sinkholes in places like Bayou Corne. Journalist Lou Dubose doesn’t rely on rhetoric; he’s a reporter. Hip to self-delusive pieties, he lives to expose deviousness of faux-boyish pols like Governor Bobby … Read more
Bill McKibben’s Oil and Honey is a Jeremiad about Global Warming that’s also a charm offensive. The author’s faith in the appeal of his teacherly Yankee persona seems almost as strong as his certitude rising levels of atmospheric carbon will have a devastating impact on the climate. The book jumps between McKibben’s life on the … Read more
Mirror I am white, I can feed silence. My children can breathe, though the air’s fetid with fear extinguished Black men shared. Who will keen for them? Outrage must be boots on blood-stained streets. Can you hear each victim’s last words echo? Each victim’s last words echo. Boots on blood-stained streets – can you hear … Read more
David Brooks agrees with the substance of Obama’s executive action on immigration, but believes that he has transgressed the Constitution in the process. The president has usurped the role of the legislature. For Brooks, process transcends substance, so apart from expressing sympathy for the substance of Obama’s action he has little to say about what … Read more