Culturewatch

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

“Shake It Off,” director Mark Romanek’s recent clip for Taylor Swift, depicts bad new trends in beautiful old ways. It works the same way as the best ‘80s-‘90s music videos—using semiotics to express up-to-the-minute changes in pop culture, producing the sort of imagery commentators and marketers now glibly call “iconic.” The video shows Swift—a young … Read more

in 1856, Walt Whitman predicted the coming of a race of fierce and athletic girls …tann’d in the face by shining suns and blowing winds, Their flesh has the old divine suppleness and strength. They are ultimate in their own right–they are calm, clear …well possess’d of themselves. at the time pretty much everyone thought … Read more

For a guy who once conceded nothing to Holden Caulfield when it came to abhorring the “phoney,” it takes a well-seasoned blend of irony and humor to walk around sporting designer-distressed boots, jeans and safari jacket. But I am over-seventy, a serene sail toward a gradual retirement from the practice of law hastened by the … Read more

Up until 9th grade, math was one of my favorite subjects. Like most people, I loved the palpable rightness of its solutions. Then I went to a magnet science & tech high school, and suddenly I sucked at math because big brain robotoid kids with underdeveloped social skills were the majority of the student body. … Read more

Bob Liss finished this report on LeBron James’s role in last season’s NBA playoffs a few days before James announced he was “going home” to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers next season. Liss takes in the news in his postscript to this piece. Just a year ago, with the Miami Heat joyfully repeating as NBA … Read more

The costumes are wrong. They have to be discarded. We have to start out naked again and go from there. —Playwright Wallace Shawn, from the essay “Why I Call Myself a Socialist” Tom and Sasha, the romantically linked protagonists of Benjamin Kunkel’s play Buzz, share a loft apartment (the play’s sole setting) in a borderline-sketchy … Read more