Robert Musil
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What do you do when you’re ROBERT MUSIL (1880-1942), when you’ve been nominated for a Nobel prize, when you live in abject poverty because you refuse to compromise, when you’re plagued by the success of […]
Read This PostAuthor: Peggy Nelson
Peggy Nelson is a new media artist whose work involves fractured narratives in film, sound, Twitter, and even objects on occasion. Follow her on Twitter at @otolythe.
Neal Stephenson
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No one writes edge-of-your-seat, action-packed, cinematic cliffhangers better than NEAL STEPHENSON (born 1959), and that’s just the talking-heads parts of his novels of ideas. He mashes up solid theoretical discourse (physics, cryptography, philosophy, semiotics) with […]
Read This PostBrigitte Bardot
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Blonde bombshell BRIGITTE BARDOT (born 1934) exploded onto the world stage in the 1950s. A woman with the neotenic features of a child, Bardot’s Bézier curves measured pure sex appeal, and have been templatized by […]
Read This PostNorma Shearer
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Known as “that ugly girl who can’t dance,” NORMA SHEARER (1902-83) was a self-made urchin who became the Queen of (Pre-Code) Hollywood, personifying the “she’s gotta have it” ethos. Stylish, independent, and opinionated, her characters […]
Read This PostHilary Putnam
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HILARY PUTNAM (born 1926) is the most important philosopher you’ve never heard of. In an era when most theorists build their careers by limning the edges of history, Putnam is one of the hands-on few […]
Read This PostR. Buckminster Fuller
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A New England scion twice kicked out of Harvard for nonconformity and “apathy,” R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER (1895-1983) went on to invent the geodesic dome (he said he got the idea while watching the bubbles generated […]
Read This PostEgon Schiele
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EGON SCHIELE (1890-1918) was the best thing about the blizzard I spent in Vienna. I had gone to see the remnants of a nervous splendor, expecting well-behaved aesthetic souvenirs from a once-hypermodern past. But when […]
Read This PostIgor’s Blues
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WHEN I WATCH old monster movies, I think, What is it with these scientists? Whenever you have some Misshapen Fiend lurching all over the frame, muttering gibberish, trying to kill everything in its path and […]
Read This PostChantal Akerman
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Filmmaker CHANTAL AKERMAN (born 1950), the arthouse precursor to Charlie Kaufman, Jem Cohen, and even Sam Mendes, took one small step for a woman, and one giant leap into interstitial space, with her investigations of […]
Read This PostJimmy Stewart
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JIMMY STEWART (1908-97) endlessly reprised Everyman… yet his most iconic films are perfect set pieces of horror. Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, supposedly a Christmas classic, is a vicious exposé of the underpinnings of capitalism. […]
Read This PostL. Frank Baum
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L. FRANK BAUM (1856–1919) is best known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and wrote 13 sequels. Which seems like a lot until you realize that the series was dwarfed by the number of other […]
Read This PostJasper Johns
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Known best for his Flag (1954-5) and Map (1961), JASPER JOHNS (born 1930) along with his friend and one-time lover Robert Rauschenberg, applied gestural painting and bold, unblended color to everyday images and objects. Focusing […]
Read This PostJoseph Beuys
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A conceptual artist, self-inventor, and master of materials who constructed his strongest work out of intangibles, JOSEPH BEUYS (1921-1986) was our postcard deity in art school. His sense of the absurd combined with his high […]
Read This PostKatharine Hepburn
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An icon as much for her chin line and Ivy League drawl (which possibly she made up; they certainly didn’t talk like that at Cornell!), KATHARINE HEPBURN (1907-2003) was a strong and independent woman, perhaps […]
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