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Hey, Here’s the entry for the verb form of “ban” over at Dictionary.com: “to prohibit, forbid, or... Read More

Twenty-five years ago, I decided, in the self-conscious manner of late adolescence, to live my life as a skeptic. Having given up the... Read More

There is something absurd about hearing a character in a movie utter the title of the movie they’re in out loud. It’s a moment... Read More

In 2014, in London for a bookfair, I found myself at dinner with an English editor who expressed his admiration of Ben Lerner’s Leaving... Read More

“Artists given complete freedom die a horrible death. So, when you tell them what they can’t do, they get creative and say,... Read More

BEN LERNER MIGHT BE the youngest writer in America who is permitted to write with luminous intelligence about erudite, urbane intellectuals... Read More

So I was trying to find out more about you online, and I really couldn’t find out a ton —  I’m glad to hear that. So... Read More

Take it from a Cleveland native: The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame doesn’t belong in my hometown. It should be in Memphis, Tenn., the... Read More

Ask your middle-class or wealthy friends with children between the ages of eight and 18 to do something fun on a weekend in the spring or... Read More

What distinguishes human beings from animals? Philosophers have tried to answer this question. For Marx, it was people’s unique ability... Read More

Emoji-faced Bennett Cerf, founder of Random House and star of the YouTube-friendly game show What’s My Line?, is no longer... Read More

Ask the average American adult what he thinks of promoting “action civics” in the public school curriculum and his response is... Read More

With a new installment in the Mortal Kombat movie series set for nationwide release in early May, now is an ideal time to revisit... Read More

The presidential call for “unity” is a bipartisan tradition. After Donald Trump was elected in 2016, Barack Obama urged Americans... Read More

Marc Ribot has spent more than four decades moving fluidly across the boundaries that ordinarily organize musical life: between downtown... Read More

I can recall many confident predictions that print culture lay on the verge of death. A quarter-century ago, conventional wisdom held that... Read More

The rise of racial slavery in the New World was one of the most significant developments in modern history, shaping the economy, society,... Read More

Forget Bad Bunny’s halftime show and the Drake lawsuit: if social media is any indication, this year’s biggest... Read More

EVERY MEMBER OF MY parents’ generation remembers where they were the day JFK was shot, when the Berlin Wall came down, when the second... Read More

I’m a climate activist, but I don’t think climate is the most important thing. Not really. I care about climate because I care... Read More

I always enjoy visiting the Meadows Museum, the art museum at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Its founder, Algur Meadows, wanted... Read More

Autofiction has been known for fictionalising the mundane real lives of its creators. The names of the narrators aren’t always... Read More

I don’t drink anymore, but a vestigial hangover clouds my recollection of the major events of recent history. On the morning of the... Read More

If New Orleans has a siren song, it’s neon. The Hotel Monteleone’s signature rooftop sign smolders red against the... Read More

By early 1963, the Station Hotel in London had become an epicenter of the burgeoning British blues scene. On a blustery, snowy night that... Read More

Peter Shull’s short story “Prague” had voice and momentum, and it gave insight into how a writer’s vocation... Read More

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE’S novel Infinite Jest, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is the perfect parable for reading in... Read More

More than a decade ago, when I was a senior editor at The American Conservative, I occasionally wrote a piece that paired two films and... Read More

The period of peak Keanu saturation known as the Keannaissance may be behind us, but Keanu Reeves keeps on doing what he's done throughout... Read More

At this year’s Coachella Music Festival, legendary musician David Byrne gave a killer performance. Byrne, formerly a member of Talking... Read More

Can paradise last forever? In a contained environment, can something sacred and stolen stretch to something longer? Or are those moments... Read More

Merch is dead, and streetwear is now more closely connected to the corporate and high-fashion worlds than it is the street. In fact, earlier... Read More

Lee Sung Jin thinks about cycles. The Beef creator knows how life loves to give us different flavors of the same problem, over and over... Read More