Tag Archives: Literature

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Society

The New York Times Magazine – Sept. 8, 2024

September 7, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (September 7, 2024): The latest issue features Caity Weaver on the tyranny of the American penny; Jordan Kisner on the future of the Shakers; Dan Kaufman on NAFTA and politics; and more.

America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny

How NAFTA Broke American Politics

Since its passage in 1993, the trade agreement has played an outsize role in presidential elections — which now often hinge on the three Rust Belt states it helped to hollow out.

There Are Only Two Shakers Left. They’ve Still Got Utopia in Their Sights.

Their numbers have dwindled, but the remaining members are imagining what comes next.By Jordan KisnerCreditLucas Foglia for The New York Times

Is It OK to Vote for My Third-Party Fave This Presidential Election?

The First Movie About Pop Music to Nail Its Mediocrity

Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Current Affairs: Prospect Magazine – October 2024

August 28, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Prospect Magazine (July 11, 2024) – The latest issue features ‘The New Fascism’ – Local authorities and the police are facing a globally organised far right they barely understand

The new fascism

Local authorities and the police are facing a globally organised far right they barely understand By Paul Mason

“I think the protests are great,” the far-right influencer James Goddard told subscribers to his Telegram channel, in a video the day after the Sunderland riot. “But we need to clean up the optics… Number one, please stay away from religious buildings, places of worship, mosques, Islamic centres. Just stay away from them. You’re going to cause a conflict that we don’t need to have… yet.”

The president’s crimes

The oldest constitution in the world was not made for the political culture of modern America. The Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v United States is a symptom of its crisis

During the riots, we saw that solidarity is action

Standing in a huge crowd of counter-protesters, I’m more aware than ever that racist violence is part of a structural problem and an inevitable extension of mainstream Islamophobia

Arts & Literature, Books, Essays, Magazines, Previews, Reviews

Los Angeles Review Of Books – Summer 2024

August 13, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

LA Review of Books (August 13, 2024) – The latest issue, No. 42, features Gossip. The editors start a group chat on group chats, inviting Daniel Lavery, Summer Kim Lee, Whitney Mallett, Natasha Stagg, Sarah Thankam Mathews, Tal Rosenberg, Sophie Kemp, Hillary Brenhouse, Sophia Stewart, and Jamie Hood;

Zoe Mendelson puts a dollar sign and a public spin on the phrase “daddy issues” in an online-only exclusive;

Rhian Sasseen swipes right on behalf of a fictional porn addict;

Francesca Peacock roots through the archives for a deeper understanding of scandal and speech;

Ruth Madievsky closes the gate on her college rumor mill;

and Emmeline Clein recounts an “American Icarus story” spelled out in diet pills and rhinestones.

Gossip as a Literary Genre, or Gossip as “L’Écriture feminine”?

Francesca Peacock roots through the archives for a deeper understanding of scandal and speech in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”

Arts & Literature, Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Cultural Views: The Drift Magazine – July 19, 2024

July 20, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

The Drift Magazine (July 19, 2024): The latest issue features Maybe fortresses come to violence like an addiction. Maybe the water is just water. The tide abandons what it leaves. We have absolutely no way of controlling the cane toad. “I love anyone who hears my screams.” You ever cry with that knowledge? Do they kiss on the mouth? What will the bears say? I am not yet a trampoline. No doors exist and nobody’s home. Simply because they are eternally young, beautiful, and dead.

Editors’ Note|Walled Off

THE EDITORS

“History as It Is Happening”|An Interview with Rachel Kushner

The Fortress University|Protesting and Policing on Campus

ERIK BAKER

Time and Time Again|Proust in the Age of Retranslation

SIMON LESER

The Ink in the Inkwell|Literature of the Black Resort Town

MELVIN BACKMAN

No Atlanta Way|Stop Cop City Meets the Establishment

SAM WORLEY

Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Reviews

Current Affairs: Prospect Magazine – Aug/Sept 2024

July 11, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Prospect Magazine (July 11, 2024) – The latest issue features ‘Fixing The Mess’ – How Britain can recover, and find its place in the world; Gaza’s Future; Asylum King – Meet the man cashing in on the system; Giorgia Meloni – How the extreme became mainstream….

How Britain can rejoin the world

The UK isn’t the global power that it was in 1997. But if the new government makes smart choices, we might still avoid drifting into irrelevance

Agnès Poirier’s diary: Parisians flee the Olympics

Agnès Poirier

For months we had been complaining about the damage the Games would inevitably bring to our city

Labour must rethink the machinery of state

Sam Freedman

Are there any humans left on the internet?

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Society

The New York Times Magazine – July 7, 2024

July 6, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (July 6, 2024): The latest issue features…

Eddie Murphy Is Ready to Look Back

By David Marchese

Eddie Murphy has been so famous for so long, occupying such a lofty place in the cultural landscape, that it can be easy to overlook just how game-changing a figure he actually is.

Let’s start, as Murphy’s career did, with standup. There had been star comics before — Steve Martin, Richard Pryor — but none exploded with anything like Murphy’s speed or intensity.

Ti West Is Turning Hollywood Into a Horror Show

His “X” trilogy — which culminates with “MaXXXine” — obsesses over cinema, stardom and the industry itself.

By RYAN BRADLEY

The Real Problem With Legal Weed

New York is trying to treat an addictive substance just like any other product.

By CHARLES FAIN LEHMAN

Arts & Literature, Journals, Literature, Poetry, Previews, Reviews

Literary Previews: The Paris Review – Summer 2024

June 18, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Paris Review Summer 2024 — The new issue features:

Mary Robison on the Art of Fiction: “The first thing they’d say was ‘This is a nice story—where’s your novel?’ And I would just lie my head off. ‘Oh, it’s at home. It’s almost there!’”

Elaine Scarry on the Art of Nonfiction: “A lot of my troubles in life have come from taking literally what I should have understood as figurative.”

Prose by Peter Cornell, Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill, Renee Gladman, Nancy Lemann, Banu Mushtaq, K Patrick, and Anne Serre.

Jhumpa Lahiri on the Art of Fiction: “My question is, What makes a language yours, or mine?”

Alice Notley on the Art of Poetry: “Writing is not therapy. That’s the last thing it is. I still have my grief.”

Prose by Elijah Bailey, Julien Columeau, Joanna Kavenna, Samanta Schweblin, Eliot Weinberger, and Joy Williams.

Poetry by Gbenga Adesina, Elisa Gabbert, Jessica Laser, Maureen N. McLane, Mary Ruefle, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, and Matthew Zapruder.

Art by Farah Al Qasimi and Chris Oh.

Culture, Magazines, Opinion, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Society

The New York Times Magazine – June 16, 2024

June 14, 2024 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (June 14, 2024): The latest issue features…

The Disturbing Truth About Hair Relaxers

They’ve been linked to reproductive disorders and cancers. Why are they still being marketed so aggressively to Black women?

The Woman Who Could Smell Parkinson’s

She first noticed the scent on her husband. Now her abilities are helping unlock new research in early disease detection.

The Interview – The Darker Side of Julia Louis-Dreyfus

At some point in almost every performance she gives, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has this look. If you’ve watched “Seinfeld,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine” or “Veep,” you know it — the perfect mix of irritation and defiance. As if she were saying, Try me.