‘The Power of the Dog’ Messages the Urgent Need for Civic Education
Thomas Savage’s novel and Jane Campion’s film adaptation of The Power of the Dog depict the danger in Americans’ distrust of civic institutions.
Books
Black Sorcerers in the Trenches of David Diop’s ‘At Night All Blood Is Black’
David Diop’s At Night All Blood Is Black is a terrifying fable whose haunting imagery explores the traumas of empire, colonial thought, and masculinity.
Will the Film Capture the Artfulness of ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’?
With its film adaptation releasing this summer, the best-seller Where the Crawdads Sing calls a reader to open themselves to places and people on the edge.
Marcial Gala’s ‘Call Me Cassandra’ Revolts Against Gender Constraints
In Call Me Cassandra, Marcial Gala dismantles the suffocating binary of unyielding machismo in pre- and post-revolutionary Cuba.
The Seeds of Blockchain Technology Are Found in Ancient Norse Mythology
Did ancient Norse mythology anticipate the future rise of blockchain? Maybe not literally but figuratively, it’s interesting to consider.
No More Talk Talk: Mark Hollis Biography Makes You Listen
Former Talk Talk member Mark Hollis was ruthlessly honest in his pursuit of a musical vision. This biography attests to the gifts and costs of his artistic pursuit.
On Ireland’s Painful Emergence into the Modern World
Fintan O’Toole’s lucid history of Ireland, We Don’t Know Ourselves, is a vivid telling of how his country’s culture of silence and repression was broken open.
‘The Dylan Tapes’ Peeks Behind the Curtain at a Landmark Biography
Anthony Scaduto’s posthumously published The Dylan Tapes is an engrossing journey into the research process of one gifted writer as he profiled another.
Laurie Anderson’s Big Science Is a Multifaceted Approach to the Artist and Her Art
Professor and music critic S. Alexander Reed takes an immersive approach to Laurie Anderson’s Big Science and writes as if he is in conversation with the artist.
Chuck Klosterman’s ‘The Nineties’ Reads Like a Complex Murder Board
Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties glosses subjects like Green Day, the Green Party, and Alan Greenspan like an insanely complex, cross-eyed inducing murder board.
Missouri Williams’ ‘The Doloriad’ Pulls Itself Along the Ground
Missouri Williams’ ‘The Doloriad’ is a perverse tale of human remnants scratching out a bare survival like a lone pine twisting out of a stony cliff.