Category Culture

Sympathy for the Schoolgirl

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story When Britney Jean Spears was sixteen years old, she put on a pleated skirt and channelled an archetype: the schoolgirl, underage temptress. It was a persona Spears wore like a polyester…

Facing the Rivals

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story My parents were unhappy immigrants, who made few connections in their new land and lived in an enclosed world of three, which unhappily included me. Family life managed to be cold…

A Little Race War – The American Conservative

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon says the usual things about America’s racial demons, and says some of them well. Credit: gettyimages/Patricia De Melo Moreira Martin Scorsese in his old age has pulled off a remarkable feat: He has…

The Fruit of the Future – The American Conservative

Could the pawpaw heal America? Credit: Regnidei America’s edible avant-garde spotlights Appalachia every fall. Though under the radar, the humble pawpaw has become a symbol of the region. Festivals have spread throughout its range. Organizers share the gospel about this…

Ivanka Trump’s Tricky Comeback Tour

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Poor Ivanka! Just when she thought she was out, they pulled her back in. I am referring, of course, to her recent appearance at the civil fraud trial of her father,…

Hollywood Faces Its Post-Strike Future

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story On Wednesday night, the actor Jeremy Allen White, of “The Bear,” was working his way down a red carpet in Dallas. It was the première of “The White Claw,” an A24…

The Man Who Invented Fifteen Hundred Necktie Knots

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story Boris Mocka believes that, at one point, he had invented more necktie knots than anyone else on the planet—so many that he started to call himself a “tieknotologist.” Most people who…

“The Marvels” and the Paradox of the Superhero Franchise

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story When the best part of a superhero movie is the screenplay, you know you’re in trouble. There’s enough going on in “The Marvels”—enough situations with dramatic potential, enough twists with imaginative…