Splendid Triviality: Philosophy, Art, and Sport in a Time of Crisis
They are necessary because without them none of the things that are noble can flourish.
Craig Clifford
· 9 min read
Art
A collection of 69 posts
With Theatres Shuttered, I Tried to Stage a 'Zoom Play.' (It Didn't Work)
I once directed a classical musical—Anything Goes—at Canada’s Shaw Festival. But that’s the only play I’ve directed that was seen by a large audience.
Sky Gilbert
· 8 min read
Struggling with Pixar’s 'Soul'
If heaven needs to be segregated, what hope does Earth have?
Colm O'Shea
· 12 min read
Carl Th. Dreyer's 'Day of Wrath' and the Power of the Punished
It is difficult to believe in heaven, but it is also difficult not to believe in a heaven.
Matthew Wardour
· 7 min read
The Death of Political Cartooning—And Why It Matters
Many nominally democratic political regimes practice de facto censorship in regard to material criticizing their populist rulers.
Jack Reilly
· 12 min read
Wide As the Sky and Deep As the Ocean
The film and the recording revealed a frail man, his mobility and speech compromised by the crippling sclerosis that had probably hastened his decision to leave the music business.
David Breuer
· 15 min read
The Troubled Maker: Transgressive Art, Public Shame, and Mike Tyson
Tyson embodies the moral ambiguity of boxing’s rich tapestry: brutal and beautiful; entertaining and repellent; dishonorable and inspiring.
Ric Royer
· 11 min read
Commemorating Mary
Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary each paid a high price for defying convention. They both entered into relationships out-of-wedlock at a time when doing so was enough to put a woman out of good society.
Lona Manning
· 10 min read
What We Owe to ‘The Boys in the Band’—and Other Classics of Gay Film
I’m grateful to every straight director, actor, and writer who has taken up the cause over the last 60 years, and to their closeted friends and colleagues who inspired them.
Allan Stratton
· 15 min read
Time and Perceptions of Trustworthiness—the Row over a Novel Study
A society worth having rests on our willingness to co-operate, to be able to depend a little on the kindness and civility of strangers.
Rosalind Arden
· 9 min read
Then They Came for Beethoven
Beethoven is a truly odd target for progressive critics, because his views on geopolitics are known to have been, by the highly regressive standards of his time, quite progressive.
Daniel Lelchuk
· 7 min read
At the Intersection of Art and Science: Revisiting EO Wilson’s 'Consilience'
Artists and scientists have a reductionist’s idea of one another and perceive the other as a threat.
Clint Margrave
· 6 min read
Denunciation Staged as 'Dialogue': A Review of Claudia Rankine's 'Help'
The lines spoken by the white men on stage were excerpted from responses to her Times article.
Nick Comilla
· 8 min read
The Hagia Sophia Should Remain a Beacon to All
The Hagia Sophia was the brainchild of a unique figure in history.
Lars Brownworth
· 9 min read
Francis Bacon’s Very, Very Ordered Chaos
Dyer hated the way Bacon painted him and watched with incredulity as rich collectors bought one huge, violently distorted portrait after another.
Devon Britt-Darby
· 8 min read