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Writing in 1949, Philip Rahv divided American literature into volatile, rebellious “redskins” and puritan, effete “palefaces.” Although Rahv was dividing the lowbrow from the high, I would assert that, today, our “redskins” are intellectually restless […]
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I lived in California for nearly ten years, and whenever I would take the interminable ride up or down The Five, I would stick my old Nikon F1 out the window and try to play […]
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The hip-hop producer MADLIB (born 1973) is also a helium-voiced rapper (Quasimodo) and a one-man jazz “quintet” (Yesterday’s New Quintet), among other alter egos. Since 1993, he’s contributed to dozens of recordings, and his breed […]
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It is as impossible to think of the 20th century absent Cosimo from The Baron in the Trees (1957), by ITALO CALVINO (1923-1985), as it is to think of the 19th without Raskolnikov, the 18th […]
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THOR HEYERDAHL (1914–2002) lived a long life, but so much was left undone: he might have piloted an ice floe from Porvoo to Hokkaido to prove Finland’s nomadic Sami peopled Japan; he might have shown […]
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The popularity of apocalyptic fiction in the Sixties (1964-73), it has been suggested, indicates that SF writers had become bored and suspicious of utopian idylls promising that ameliorative reforms could right modern civilization’s manifold wrongs; […]
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Now that the radical punch of punk seems no more potent than a daisy in a National Guardsman’s rifle, the artsy-fartsy fundament of its posture has become as evident — and as significant — as […]
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Even though there’s no shepherd issuing orders, we behave like docile sheep.
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“My nose is blown, doc,” mopes a bandaged bloodhound cop as he sags against a panel border. In “No Nose is Good Nose,” Dr. Howland Owl laughs at the patient, violating his “hippocritical oaf.” Set […]
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Despite her reputation as the witty gal of the Algonquin Round Table, DOROTHY PARKER (1893-1967) dismissed the clique as “just a lot of people telling jokes and telling each other how good they were.” They […]
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In all of her writing and art TOVE JANSSON (1914-2001) paid keen attention to the beauty and detail in the natural world. But the descriptions and illustrations of people (or their fantastical stand-ins: hemulens, fillyjonks, […]
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Even when JAMES HETFIELD (born 1963) smiles — which he did copiously during this year’s induction of Metallica into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for example — his face can’t fully escape its […]
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L D2 L′ F′ D2 F. U R L U2 R′ L′. F D2 F′ D′ F D F′. Anybody who has ever experienced apoplectic rage while trying to solve a Rubik’s Cube, and has […]
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Smith explored the inner landscapes opened up by postwar mind science.
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