Nothing Makes Sense Except Charles Portis
John Wayne and Glen Campbell on the set of True Grit.Entertainment Pictures/ZUMA I made my first experiments in Southern identity at the age of 13, when my father gave me a copy of Barry Hannah’s Geronimo Rex. It was something I did not know I needed. I was tired of the bullying, mostly self-inflicted, that…
Kickstarter Was Supposed to Be About Conscious Capitalism. So Why Did It Oppose a Union Drive?
Maurizio Gambarini/AP Yancey Strickler, the co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter, has been in a bit of a bind. His book, This Could Be Our Future, is a “manifesto” for “a more generous world.” It is an argument for—and even a partial guide to—a new, conscious capitalism. But he can’t avoid the other major development…
Zuckerberg Says Facebook Welcomes Regulation. The Question Is: How Much?
Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that it’s getting harder to spot and stop election meddling as the technology becomes more and more sophisticated, and he welcomed regulation….to a point. “We don’t want private companies making so many decision-balancing social equities without democratic processes,” he said at the Munich Security Conference…
How Do You Make Music When The World Really Is Ending?
Gonzales/Tord Litleskare/Avalon/Zuma The cover of The Slow Rush—the latest album from Tame Impala, Kevin Parker’s one-man-band from Perth, Australia—looks like the old red moon desert Windows desktop wallpaper invading an uninhabited house. Maybe that association is an accident. But I find it fitting that a wisp of memory common to anyone who used a PC in…
In Dawoud Bey’s Photography, the Past Isn’t Past
“It begins with the subject,” Dawoud Bey has said of his photography. “A deep interest in wanting to describe the Black subject in a way that’s as complex as the experiences of anyone else. It’s meant to kind of reshape the world one person at a time.” It is an audacious mission, but Bey’s work—now…
Let’s Tear Down the Ivory Tower of News
The two of us came of age in newsrooms at the cusp of the digital age—late enough that you could tell everything was about to change, but early enough that old habits still held unquestioned sway. Some of these (like smoking at your desk) were soon to vanish, but others have been stubbornly hanging around.…