A Website of the Radical Imagination
Dead, you’re the critics’ darling. When I was a teen, you were mine. Each morning I lifted The Velvet Underground and Nico from its sleeve, watched it spin, waited for Sunday Morning’s opening notes to warm me like a junk rush. Bursting with things to say but needing someone else’s words, I wore your face … Read more
It is reliably said that during Isaiah Berlin’s youth his pampering mother used to rouse him from sleep with the question, “What are we going to do today?” To which the answer was: “Nothing.” Perhaps Marie Berlin became the nicest kind of Stalin in his subconscious.[1] In the depths of the Stalinist night, around midnight … Read more
Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavor, before he allows himself to be tempted by more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid. H. W. Fowler, Dictionary of Modern English Usage In a New York Times Book Review earlier this year I read two pieces printed on following … Read more
You write. Your friends say, “I liked it.” They say, “You’re really a good writer,” like it still comes as a surprise. You don’t blame them. If everyone could say something memorable, everyone would be Oscar Wilde. When Black Eye (“The Journal of Humor and Despair”) published a chapter of my black comedy The Schiz, … Read more
The author gave this commencement address at the School of Visual Arts on 19 May 2013. I’m not here today to offer advice or even encouragement. I’m here to talk about art and audience, about art and the people it reaches—and what happens when it does. I’ve always believed that the divisions between high art … Read more
The wiz behind the Gramsci Monument erected this summer—and now disassembled—in the center of a South Bronx Housing Project is no Oz. Thomas Hirschhorn is sincere about “doing art in a public space.” He was a presence at his creation, which was open every day this summer. The artist meant to stretch himself before and … Read more
I. Tim’s Late Spring A summer’s worth of blockbuster trades has radically shifted the traditional power axes in the NBA, as franchises move either to rebuild (Lakers and Celtics) or to weld together groups of superstars, some of them aging (New Jersey’s Nets, the LA Clippers) to challenge the budding Miami Heat dynasty. It could … Read more