Jun 25, 2017

As a New Yorker, you "spend a very significant amount of time in public," notes Justin Davidson, architecture and music critic for New York magazine, "encountering other people who behave and dress and think differently from you." I say that this makes us morally superior to the car-bound denizens of Houston. He demurs:...

Jun 18, 2017

Diane Arbus's old contact sheets include images she never meant us to see, but would perusing them violate her rights as an artist? Photographer Benjamin Swett says he'd look at them with pleasure, and makes a persuasive case that he's not going to hell. Plus, the invention of the circular saw and celibacy...

Jun 11, 2017

Nachsohn was the first Israelite into the Red Sea - before God parted the waters. So, committed activist or blind follower? Much has been said about leaders, less about what we value in the rank and file. Ruth Messinger has thought about both, as a city council member, as Manhattan borough president, in her work...

Jun 4, 2017

DJ Alan Freed, who might have coined the term "rock'n'roll," was destroyed in the payola scandals of the fifties, but he was no more corrupt than his colleagues, says Kenny Vance. And Freed staged some of the first integrated rock shows. Does this mitigate his conduct? Sharp ideas about radio, rock, and the invention...