Longreads

Great Compositions For Craig Semetko Henri Cartier-Bresson started in photography like many of us. He took cute pictures of his friends and surroundings, until he decided to make a change. It was…

Some 25 years have passed since the publication of Paul Fussell’s naughty treat Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, and I think this quarter-century mark merits the raising of either a yachting pennant, an American flag, or a wind sock with the Budweiser logo (corresponding to Fussell’s demarcations of Upper Class, Middle Class, and Prole). For readers who somehow missed this snide, martini-dry American classic, do have your assistant Tessa run out and get it immediately (Upper), or at least be sure to worriedly skim this magazine summary over a low-fat bagel (Middle), because Fussell’s bibelot-rich tropes still resonate.

One day, I bought a small stack of acid house records from a stand in Camden Market. I listened to them, read about the movement in the music papers, and got a rough picture. If there were some way of returning to Harare and reconvening the crew (at the time, I was the only one who had left the country to attend college), I would have explained that acid house was indeed house music, but in the condition of a virus. It actually came from Chicago, from cats like Phuture and the great Armando, but it had taken on a life of its own in the streets of London.