Not Every “Monstrous Bitch” Is a Feminist Victim
Qualities coded as “monstrous” in Eleanor Johnson’s Monstrous Bitch are more interesting than assuming that their monstrosity is itself evidence of patriarchy.
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MetalMatters: The Best Metal Albums of September 2026
In September’s best metal, Godflesh dream dystopian industrial structures, Epitaphe connect death metal styles, and Archgoat carry on their death/black tradition.
Albert Camus’ Anti-Ideology Message for Our Times
Albert Camus’ The Complete Notebooks evince a writer who saw the perils of abstraction, as humans potentially become subordinate to ideology, ciphers instead of flesh-and-blood.
Take What You Deserve: On Meritocracy, Desire, and ‘How to Make a Killing’
John Patton Ford’s How to Make a Killing uses a dying man’s cheesecake complaint to expose the hidden violence of meritocracy: not greed, but the slow colonization of desire by a system that promises everything and recognizes nothing.
Get Rid of All the Pesky Humans: An AI Fantasy
Echoing Hannah Arendt’s postwar warnings about the authoritarian impulse, Jill Lepore shows that an anti-humanist strain was threaded into the acceleration of technological advancements.
Scatman John’s Forgotten Jazz Album Is a Little Masterpiece
Before his unexpected rise to pop stardom as Scatman John, John Larkin spent years working as a fierce, volatile jazz pianist, crossing paths with some legendary names in the genre.
Edie Brickell and Matt Chamberlain Look Forward to World Famous Pets
Many decades after their commercial peak, Edie Brickell and Matt Chamberlain circle around new creative realms while looking back on their ascent.
Stephen Greenblatt’s Distinctly Modern Sir Walter Raleigh
Like a literary psychoanalyst, Stephen Greenblatt delves into Sir Walter Raleigh’s inner identity; like a sociological theatre critic, he explores Elizabethan performance and reveals striking parallels to our time.
The Rolling Stones’ Dionysian Passion
When popular music was still confined to parlor etiquette and artificial formulas, the Rolling Stones chose sweat, volume, and an uncontrollably explosive, bodily Dionysian spirit on stage.
Casey Defined Musical Sorrow 10 Years Ago with ‘Love Is Not Enough’
Ten years ago, Casey released Love Is Not Enough. It fused furious hardcore with atmospherics, dynamic structures and singing. It was all in aid of its sorrow.
Two Animated Animals Movies That Are So Not Disney
Far from the Disney path, these animated animal movies from Hungary and the Philippines revel in parody, satire, and real world-inspired violence.
The 10 Best Pop Music Books of the 2000s So Far
These ten books are not a poptimist syllabus, but they represent some of the best music writing of the 21st century on pop music.