Akin to Choose Your Own Adventure or indeed to gamification, the ability for an audience to choose their own preferred ending in various art forms appears shocking that it hasn’t yet become standard. As culture has become more democratic, largely thanks to the internet, this seems inevitable.
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THE LONG VIEW
“What excited him, then as now, was grand expeditionary photography from the turn of the twentieth century, when naturalism and modernism pushed up against each other.” Super longform on a photographer whose complex work richly deserves this focus. Also a more multimedia feel for New Yorker, who are beginning to experiment more with format.
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THE YEAR WE PLAYED OURSELVES
The end of year reviews have begun in earnest and this offering at The New Yorker takes DJ Khaled’s ‘play yourself’ phrase (mean that you’re screwing yourself over despite your best efforts) as the catchphrase for the year. Think Trump, think Boris Johnson’s attempt to become PM, think harder.
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The novelist of human unknowability
Guest curator, Pamela Hutchinson: “This in-depth profile of Henry Green, my favourite 20th-century novelist nails exactly the strengths of his sharp, surprising novels (Terry Southern called him a “writer’s writer’s writer”) and less happily, how his work has never quite had the popularity it deserves.”
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CITY OF WOMEN
In anticipation of Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro’s new book, Nonstop Metropolis, a literary-urbanist perspective of New York, there have been some great extracts and previews featured by publishers in the last week, including the interview with RZA recommended here a few days ago. Here Solnit illuminates the great women of New York.
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LEONARD COHEN MAKES IT DARKER
An extended profile of the now 82-year-old Leonard Cohen ahead of the release of his latest album. Some of the press that’s reacted to this interview have suggested that this is an album which is foreseeing his own death but in truth he’s been singing about death since he was in his early twenties.
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WHEN MUSIC IS VIOLENCE
“On a symbolic level, the rituals at Guantánamo present an extreme image of how American culture forces itself on an often unwilling world.” A super discussion of music used aggressively as a form of torture. Alex Ross considers it only natural: if music represents human expression that we should expect violence.
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In the Future, We Will Photograph Everything and Look at Nothing
“Just as apps like Instagram and devices like iPhone made us all able to take decent photos, the new intelligent software should make all our shots effortlessly better, as well as much easier to find and share.” Future thinking for photo editing: a world where we just snap, and our technology does the rest.
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The Music Critic in the Age of the Insta-Release
Music writer, Amanda Petrusich responds to the rise of ‘Insta-releases’, albums released without prior warning, and the critics’ rush to be first or to be a part of the conversation. A superb discussion of the role of critics.
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