Celebrating Community
Peter Nicks’ exceptional documentary Homeroom, which debuts on Hulu August 12, is the third film in a trilogy focused on the residents of Oakland, California, and their fraught relationship with public institutions. The first, The Waiting Room (2012), centered on health care, specifically Highland Hospital; The Force (2017) was concerned with policing. Homeroom tackles education — Nicks admits to being […]
Review of Mona by Pola Oloixarac, Translated from the Spanish by Adam Morris Review by Michael Quinn Waking up on a Palo Alto train station platform, covered in blood, with no memory of what happened or how she got there, Mona, the title character of the third novel by Argentinian writer Pola Oloixarac (translated from the Spanish by Adam Morris), […]
Pretty much since the start, there’s been a debate over just what jazz is. The etymology of the term is itself unclear. Jazz was first called “jas” and “jass,” and those look to be connected to the mid-19th century slang “jasm,” (yes, you know what that is) transmuted in a 1916 article in the Daily Californian to “jaz-m.” Close by […]
Review of Marvelous Manhattan: Stories of the Restaurants, Bars, and Shops That Make This City Special by Reggie Nadelson Review by Michael Quinn. Now that the city’s opening up, where are you looking forward to going? Should you be willing to venture across the river, author Reggie Nadelson has some swell suggestions. Her new book, Marvelous Manhattan: Stories of the […]
I saw the movie “The Age of Adaline” and we are blessed to have this. This is why movies can touch us so deeply. It stars Blake Lively. Blake is a she if you didn’t know. She plays Adaline. A beautiful young woman cursed to be alone forever. I loved her in this. Do you know who else loved her? […]
Rock epicness is a tricky proposition. Rock is, or should be, in opposition to all pretension. Epicness, on the other hand, invites pretension. They’re like oil and water—they don’t mix but can be combined, one spreading into a thin, almost invisible film across the other, rendering it unusable. Drinking large amounts of pretentious epic rock can kill you. Rock epicness […]
Carnivals and amusement parks have always held the allure of the illicit. Slightly malevolent barkers beckon you into sideshows promising thrills, chills, and horrors beyond your imaginations. Scantily clad acrobats, trapeze artists, and magician’s assistants infuse the atmosphere with sex and desire. Ragtag clowns wear lurid makeup that can never quite hide their I’ve-seen-way-too-much eyes. Creaky rides, seemingly always on […]
The good news is, it looks like summertime, which is not just a box on the calendar but a whole experience here in New York. It can seem like a struggle, the heat and humidity and waiting for the subway in a stuffy station. But after last summer’s unease, dread, anger, frustration, outraged energy—because Black Lives Matter and if you […]
Marc Ribot is sick of everyone. Or so it seems. Or artists and activists, anyway. And politicians. And cowboys, although they might be a metaphor for one or more of those other categories. Hope—Ribot’s second release with his quick-quitted trio Ceramic Dog in nine months (out June 25 on Northern Spy) and fifth overall—seems to hold little hope, at least […]
Review of Taking a Long Look: Essays on Culture, Literature, and Feminism in Our Time by Vivian Gornick Review by Michael Quinn Bronx-born Vivian Gornick cut her teeth as a journalist working as a reporter for Village Voice in the early ’70s. An urgent need to “put the reader behind my eyes—see the scene as I had seen it, feel […]