Category Culture

It was 1948 or so, and the comedy duo Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll faced a dilemma. Radio was no longer the nation’s dominant form of entertainment, and Gosden and Correll’s long-running program, “Amos ’n’ Andy,” about a…

Save this storySave this storySave this storySave this story The trend toward long movies has a commercial aspect and an artistic one, and occasionally, as in the new live-action version of “The Little Mermaid,” they converge. With heavy competition from…

One of the last videos taken of Elliott Smith shows him at the Fonda Theatre, in Los Angeles. He’s sitting in a metal stacking chair, wearing faded dark pants and a T-shirt that says “I 💔 METAL.” He’s slumped over…

The U.S. is in the midst of an “everything” shortage. The country is experiencing a shortage of chickpeas and peanuts, threatening two of Americans’ most beloved edible spreads. The U.S. is also running low on Christmas trees, garage doors, lumber, feminine care products,…

Photograph from Alamy  The Swiss composer Othmar Schoeck, who lived from 1886 to 1957, is little known outside his native land, but his moments of fame have been as striking as they are strange. For one thing, Schoeck gained the…

Hendrith Vanlon Smith, Jr. said, “Good cities implement good systems design – systems that cultivate life, systems that utilize waste, systems that promote wellbeing among its residents.” Bad cities, by contrast, instill fear and paranoia among their residents.  That paranoia leads…

Since the early twenty-tens, Elena Ferrante’s work has had a sirenic effect on adult women who identify as complicated and brainy. “The Lying Life of Adults,” a new Netflix show, is the latest evidence of her lasting cultural impact. Starring…

In the winter of 1969, at fifty-two years old and after decades of revolutionizing the way we hear notes and silence, the jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk was invited to record a conversation and solo session for French television.…

It wasn’t until the sixth episode of the shape-shifting and genre-curious new “Star Wars” series “Andor” that I figured out what had been nagging at me. The episode, titled “The Eye,” centers on rebel fighters as they plan to infiltrate…

In an interview with German Catholic media earlier today, Bishop Johan Bonnay of Antwerp said “communion with the Pope is sacred to me” and argued the Flemmish bishops’ proposed rubric for blessing homosexual couples is “in line with Pope Francis.”…