Celebrating Community
Review of The Street by Ann Petry Review by Michael Quinn Even successful books, continuously in print for generations, eventually fade into the background. New editions, repackaged with fresh cover art and introductions by contemporary authors, give us reason to see them with fresh eyes. Such is the case with The Street, Ann Petry’s critically-acclaimed 1946 novel (with an insightful […]
Review of The Street by Ann Petry Review by Michael Quinn Even successful books, continuously in print for generations, eventually fade into the background. New editions, repackaged with fresh cover art and introductions by contemporary authors, give us reason to see them with fresh eyes. Such is the case with The Street, Ann Petry’s critically-acclaimed 1946 novel (with an insightful […]
Review of The Paperback Guy: Words from the Sidewalk by Kurt Brokaw For over thirty years of Sundays, Kurt Brokaw has hauled a table to Broadway (somewhere between Lincoln Center and specialty food store Zabar’s) to set up shop on the sidewalk. He’s there to sell his collection of pulp fiction magazines and vintage paperbacks from the ‘40s and ‘50s. […]
Review of Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood by Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova by Michael Quinn In the tradition of great comedy duos that include Bill and Ted, Beevis and Butt-Head and Abbott and Costello, Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova bring playfulness, nuttiness, and irreverent, off-the-wall humor to the lifestyle and self-help space with Trixie and Katya’s Guide […]
Review of Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski James Baldwin, the late black, gay, American writer, used his work to boldly explore racial and social issues. According to Baldwin, his 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room (about an American man in Paris who falls in love with an Italian bartender) was “not so much about homosexuality, it is what happens if […]
For months now, New Yorkers have been bent out of shape, either cooped up at home or stretched thin on the front line of what’s happening during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s strange to think of the world we all inhabited a few months ago, the casual freedoms we enjoyed: seeing friends, going out to eat. In his ambitious illustrated history […]
We inherit many things from our mothers, from the color of our eyes to our bad skin. Is it possible we inherit the traumas they’ve experienced as well? Belgian writer and director Chantal Akerman was the daughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, and her mother was the subject of much of her work. My Mother Laughs, recently translated from the French […]
There isn’t a human life on earth that hasn’t been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. For the first time in human history, there’s no other place to which we can escape. Here in New York City, many of us are quarantined at home. The nesting instinct isn’t natural this time of year when, through our dirty winter windows, we can […]
Review of Kevin Baker’s The Fall of a Great American City: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence Years ago, I came across a seldom-seen friend on Houston Street. Ranee was sitting on a bench in front of an American Apparel, wearing sunglasses and eating an ice cream cone, looking very self-satisfied. We marveled at the unlikely odds of […]
Review of Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019 by Natasha Stagg In another era, the worst thing you could be accused of was selling out. But for a younger generation, it’s become the objective: the new version of the American dream. No matter how old you are, the corporatization of our culture makes it common to talk about things […]