Category: Culture

Aloft and Not a Little Aloof

Chang-rae Lee’s third novel, Aloft, released earlier this month, is a book of firsts.

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Licking Popes is Icky

Let me tell you a story—not too many months ago, a creative writing professor gave me some “truth hurts, kiddo,” criticism.

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We Added 200 Strangers on BeReal, and We’re Never Opening the App Again

“Hypothesis: people our age around the world are alone during a significant portion of their waking hours. And hypothetically, BeReal is the perfect observational device.”

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Pitching Princeton

A few months ago, a prospective student from my high school (let’s call her “Susan”) visited Princeton. I did not know her—her interests, her talents, her social proclivities—and yet I found myself on the verge of launching into a speech about how Princeton is the best school—probably in the world—and how she would in all likelihood be denying herself the possibility of self-transcendence if she applied elsewhere early action.

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All American (Anti-) Hero

In the third episode of Netflix and Marvel’s new superhero show Daredevil, a man crushes in his enemy’s face by repeatedly smashing it with a bowling ball.

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Left Swipe Smoking?

Strategic campaigns have sold cigarettes to marginalized individuals as a means of rejecting the culture that cast them out.

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The Transatlantic Professor

“It’s hard to know what the Booker means in America. Americans aren’t eligible. Does that make them lose interest, or does it give the prize a mystique?” Alan Hollinghurst wondered aloud during an interview last week in his office at 185 Nassau.

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CATFIGHT!

When we hear “Jane Austen,” we tend to think of country manners, happy endings and Colin Firth in a wet shirt. So, when posters announcing the third lecture in the Princeton University President’s Lecture Series went up several weeks ago-“Jane … Read More

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I Am a Giant Pussy

James Taylor sucks. In a world of few certainties, that is one. “If I hear one more Jesus-walking-the-boys-and-girls-down-a-Carolina-path-while-the-dilemma-of-existence-crashes-like-a-slab-of-hod-on-James Taylor’s-shoulders song,” Lester Bangs once famously wrote, “I will drop everything and hop the first Greyhound to Carolina for the signal satisfaction … Read More

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I Want You Flat on Your Back, And Then I Want You Strong Again: A Different Phantom Thread

“These are Alma’s and the film’s first words. A cynic will scoff, but no, give a serious thought to this idea. How many of us have the courage to dream – how many of us have the courage to dispense with cynicism and see our dreams come true?”

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Too Soon

A review of Bon Iver’s 22, A Million.

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Down and Out in South Kensington and Fort Tryon

I have an unusual number of early childhood memories that involve being dragged to museums by my art-loving mother. She would usually resign herself to the inevitable outcome: me sulkily plunking myself down on one of those 360 degree couches … Read More

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