Because the Night Belongs to Lovers
Love is transformative—and in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare is clear-sighted about the fact that that transformation can be for the worse.
Iona Italia
· 8 min read
Art and Culture
A collection of 782 posts
Another Tiresome Trans-Activist Power Play
The campaign to strip novelist John Boyne of his Polari Prize longlist honour shows that gender extremists still seek to control progressive arts subcultures—even as mainstream society rejects their illiberal movement.
Allan Stratton
· 9 min read
His Satanic Majesty Retires
A tribute to the man who helped to revolutionise modern rock music and reality TV.
Dave Thompson
· 12 min read
The Mediocrity Feedback Loop
If leading media critics don’t expect much, filmmakers won’t deliver much.
Charlotte Allen
· 15 min read
It Don’t Worry Me
Robert Altman’s ‘Nashville’ is fifty.
Matt Hanson
· 7 min read
Disco Inferno
Disco Demolition Night was an early episode of culture and counterculture being saddled with far greater political significance than they deserved.
George Case
· 10 min read
The Art of Not Quite Listening
Ian Penman has published an eccentric new book about Erik Satie, a French surrealist composer and celebratory nuisance with a tiny oeuvre and massive influence.
Thomas Larson
· 9 min read
Purity, Profit, and Politics
How journalism exchanged the duty to inform for an ethic of customer satisfaction.
Steve Salerno
· 23 min read
Creative Writing in the Age of Trump
The assumption that once drove creative writing—that interior life deserves as much respect and interest as the latest bump in relations at the White House—no longer obtains.
Daphne Merkin
· 8 min read
The Forgotten Ford
Before Han Solo and Indiana Jones, there was another Harrison Ford, a star of silent cinema.
Christian Kriticos
· 15 min read
Fan Service vs Geek Service
From the Iliad to Mission: Impossible, creators have wrestled with the question of how much universe-building is too much.
Stewart Slater
· 9 min read
Gonzo Bros
Twenty years after his death, what Hunter S. Thompson’s legacy—or lack of it—tells us about literature and manhood in our current moment.
Frank Celia
· 29 min read
Literary Prozac
Matthew Gasda’s new novel unfolds in a haze of empty dialogue and overwrought introspection.
Brad Strotten
· 7 min read
Theatre of Blood
Seduction and submission in the work of the Marquis de Sade.
Yuki Zeman
· 19 min read
Playing with Helpless Dead Puppets
‘Ragtime,’ E.L. Doctorow’s forgotten novel of Progressive Era New York, is a reminder of how much American politics have changed over the past century.
Josh Allan
· 9 min read