The Rise of CliffsNotes Cinema
Oversimplified literary remakes miss the point of the works they are adapting.
Culture
Why Justin Bieber Played YouTube Onstage for Thousands of People
The pop star transformed the normal act of browsing your laptop into something interesting—and unsettling.
The New Age of Performance Anxiety
With the rise of screen culture, all the world has stage fright.
Where Did ‘Let Them’ Come From?
Years before Mel Robbins published her best-selling self-help book, a struggling writer posted a poem with a similar message.
The Life of the Mind Can Only Get You So Far
Michelle de Kretser’s intellectual coming-of-age explores the fissures between one’s ideals and reality.
Why Aren’t Women Allowed to Play Baseball?
Women have always loved America’s pastime. It has never loved them back.
Coalescence
A poem
The Last Great Yiddish Novel
Chaim Grade’s Sons and Daughters rescues a destroyed world.
A Thriller That Knows Not to Overstay Its Welcome
With Black Bag, Steven Soderbergh makes the case for his own ruthless efficiency.
A ‘Slow Movie’ in the Best Possible Way
The film Eephus celebrates the beautiful, blissful anticipation of baseball.
I’d Had Jobs Before, but None Like This
The time I spent working on the Canadian National Railroad changed the course of my life.
Reality TV Just Leveled Up
The Traitors is part satire, part camp, and pure genius.
An Unabashedly Intellectual Murder Mystery
Cristina Rivera Garza’s newly translated novel evokes a mixture of numbness and anxiety in the face of incessant violence.
The Man Who Owned 181 Renoirs
Albert Barnes believed in the liberating power of art—but you had to look at it his way.