Tag
Music
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Use and Reuse: Dancing Again with Robert Rauschenberg
“Looking at the Rauschenberg archives was a revelation to me. I’ve never handled a silkscreen, and physics and geometry weren’t my best subjects in high school, but even I could see how ‘Set and Reset’ could be recreated because of the Rauschenberg studio’s meticulous records management.”
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Dancing Queer Children
Fans of Dance Moms and of RuPaul’s Drag Race alike rejoiced when Netflix debuted Dancing Queen this past fall. As Abby Lee Miller—the Dance Moms teacher and queen of my heart—frequently and …
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Editor 2 Editor: Mary Francis and Gita Manaktala
How does a scholarly book differ from a dissertation, or a string of articles? What does and doesn’t change with a shift to digital publishing? What do editors do all day?
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Muses Explain Things to Me
The feminist muse is an artist, too. No silent sitter, she swaps the easel-facing chaise for a work space wholly hers, sloughing off the obligation to inspire …
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How Christianity Created Rock ’n’ Roll
In the spring of 1998, in a Seinfeld episode called “The Burning,” Elaine, sitting with Jerry and George at the diner, tells them she had just borrowed her on-again …
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The Ambivalence of Appropriation
One day in the summer of 2001, English professor and cultural critic Eric Lott received a phone call from rock journalist Greil Marcus. Marcus had some news …
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Joni Mitchell’s Ferocious Gift
When Joni Mitchell first came to prominence, in the late-1960s “Summer of Love” era, she was often perceived as a kind of “poetess” or “nightingale” folk …
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Kill Your Idols
In April of 1966, Andy Warhol held the first of his now infamous Exploding Plastic Inevitable events at the Polski Dom Narodowy on St. Mark’s Place. A healthy buzz had already developed in the aftermath of January’s precursor event, Andy Warhol’s Up-Tight, which took place at a dinner for the New York Society for Clinical…
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Your Own Pirate Radio
In my favorite bar in the world, all the men look like Lino Ventura and all the women look like a photograph by Brassaï. They only serve two drinks: pastis and cold vodka (Żołądkowa). The only food …
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Who Owns the Blues?
Long ago, in a time available to us in the dirty crackle and hiss of 78s with worn labels, an African American singer who had traveled for 15 years on the medicine show circuit committed to shellac a song called “Old Dog Blue.” His name was Jim Jackson. Jackson recorded “Old Dog Blue” for Vocalion…
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Durham and the Art of Cool
May 2016 in downtown Durham, North Carolina, was marked by two weekend music festivals, the Art of Cool and Moogfest, which were presented in the …
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The Book That Made Me: A Sociologist
A renowned American sociologist reflects on the book that persuaded him to abandon a career playing bar piano in Chicago …
