Jul 22, 2018

“I love peonies, but wait a second, they’re fake; I hate them.” An architectural historian considers the contradictions of artificial flowers and the unnatural nature of Central Park. A conversation at the Bard Graduate Center about the “fake” – her word – and the real, with music from Amiri and Rahiem...

Jul 15, 2018

A novelist and Pulitzer-winning columnist, when she was in college she babysat Maggie Haberman, who grew up to be the terrific political reporter. A torch is passed, a head is spinning: mine. Plus music from the splendid quartet Ethel; some other part of my body is awhirl.

Jul 8, 2018

Decades ago, she was aiming for med school until she read the college catalogs. “Some of them were polite and said, ‘Not accepting negro students at this time,” she recalls. “I guess come back in twenty years.” I’d have plunged into rage and despair; she became a first-rate science writer. Race,...

Jul 1, 2018

His new documentary, The King, sees Elvis Presley as a symbol of the rise and fall of America. So where does that leave Col. Parker, Elvis’s manager, widely disparaged for exploiting Elvis? “We deserve what we get,” says Jarecki, referring both to democracy and rock’n’roll. But do we? I didn’t vote for...