Five longreads about the iconoclastic American writer, director, and activist.
Criticism
When the Dishes Are Done, I Wonder About Progress
In “Coventry,” Rachel Cusk draws a connection between politeness and narrative death, rudeness and tragedy, storytelling and war.
‘I Surprise Myself With This Refusal To Let Go’: Kate Zambreno on the ‘Ghostly Correspondence’
“I thought for sure, I’ll never write about Rilke again. I’m done with Rilke! I’m sick of Rilke! Rilke — no more. But then the other day … I just started researching something about Rilke.”
Critics: Endgame
If there’s no earth, there’s no art. How do you engage in cultural criticism at the end of the world?
The Blaming of the Shrew
Sara Fredman explore antiheroes of Golden Age television shows — and the nasty women who humanized them.
The Last of the Live Reviewers: An Interview with Nate Chinen
Nate Chinen may have been the last full-time jazz reviewer at any American newspaper. He says jazz hasn’t been in a better place since the ’60s — but the commercial infrastructure is broken.
Dead Girls: An Interview with Alice Bolin
It’s clear we love the Dead Girl, enough to rehash and reproduce her story, to kill her again and again. But not enough to see a pattern.
It’s Never Too Late to Apologize
Bari Weiss, Bret Stephens, and Katie Roiphe have to try to be better, right along with the rest of us.
The Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Ethical Enjoyment of Museums
In his review for the New York Times, Holland Cotter writes that the museum fails in “truth-telling.”
What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?
“We is an escape hatch. We is cheap. We is a way of simultaneously sloughing off personal responsibility and taking on the mantle of easy authority.”