Snark hater and Gawker Least Important Writer, 2012 David Denby is stepping down after 16 years as a New Yorker film critic, Indiewire reports. According to the magazine, Denby will "give up his fortnightly reviewing in early 2015 but will continue as a staff writer, contributing longer critic-at-large pieces."
Harvard Grad Unsure If Élite Colleges Have Value
Nathan Heller, a Magazine Writer, attended an "élite college." He is characteristically (for an "élite college" alumnus) reluctant to name it in the latest issue of America's Last Bulwark Against the Death of Culture. (He does tell us it ain't Yale.)
Donatella Versace Reviews Mariah Carey—It Is Upbeat & It Is Fabulous
The most important (read: only) piece of music criticism that the fashion world has ever paid attention to is running on Vogue UK's website: Donatella Versace on Mariah Carey's Me. I Am Mariah...The Elusive Chanteuse. The lioness meets the lamb.
"I have always liked Coldplay," the composer Nico Muhly writes, reviewing the band's new album with a delightful barrage of epigrammatic affection, expertise, and cruelty: "It unfolds perfectly, like a row house: there is no other place for the toilet to go, so obviously it goes there, at the top of the stairs."
I Can't Stop Reading This Review of Tao Lin's New Novel
We can and will stipulate first of all that Tao Lin is an overbearing self-publicist with a literary career attached, and that he is given to extremely irritating poses. This, however, tells us nothing about whether or not Tao Lin, as a novelist, has any artistic merit; there have been, historically, plenty of…
The Times Asks: Does Manhattan Still Have a Literary Nightlife?
The Times has sent critic Dwight Garner on a literary tour of New York in order to answer novelist Gary Shteyngart's immortal question, Can New Yorkers still throw a good party with only a bottle of shampoo? The answer appears to be "maybe," if you are in Brooklyn and allowed to smoke and are also in a coffee shop.
Not to be a "yes-saying" critic, but an emphatic yes to Dwight Garner on the need for incisive cultural criticism.
Louis C.K.'s Communication Breakdown
Season three of Louis C.K.'s show Louie hit the air on Thursday night while riding the crest of a tremendous wave of momentum. C.K.'s profile has bubbled up in the last year with huge sales of his comedy album and his tour, which sold $4.5 million in two days. As with many things in C.K.'s world, it's not just the…
The Killing Puts Us Out Of Its Misery
There are two kinds of murder-mystery archetypes—one where everyone is a suspect and one that explores the world in which such an act could take place. The Killing, which finished its two-season slog to completion Sunday night, failed for many reasons. But its inability to figure out to which archetype it belonged was…
The Return of the Real Don Draper
Season five of Mad Men ended just as it began: with a question. "When is everything going to get back to normal?" Roger asks Don in the third episode. The presumptive answer was that order, as they knew it, would never be restored—that the characters would instead have to adapt to a new normal as everything changed…
Why Michael Ginsberg Is the New Hero of Mad Men
Don Draper is no longer Mad Men's hero. That honor now belongs to Michael Ginsberg, the young Jewish copywriter whose work has already upstaged Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce's longtime brilliant creative director.
Why the New York Times Magazine's Reformed Old-School Music Snob is Nothing But an Old-School Music Snob
There's a doozy of an essay by the 27-or-so-years-old Alexandra Molotkow in this weekend's New York Times Magazine. "Why the Old-School Music Snob Is the Least Cool Kid on Twitter" argues, in a meandering, ultimately unpersuasive manner, that listening to obscure music was once cool, but snobbery has been replaced by…
Madonna Can't Stop Talking About Madonna on MDNA
On her 12th studio album, MDNA (out this week), Madonna sometimes talks about her life with Guy Ritchie ("Would you have married me if I were poor?"). But her self-fixation, the album's real theme, is generally career-focused. You hear it in the way the way that certain songs echo her past work — "I'm a Sinner" breaks…
Let the Web's Greatest Art Critic Teach You About the Latest Rich People Art Thing
Long story short, British artist Damien Hirst has been doing these "spot paintings" for a while—they are, literally, paintings of spots; also, technically they are "done" by his assistants—and now he's retrieved them all from collectors and distributed them among 11 Gagosian Galleries in eight countries, and is …
Drunk Lady Rubs Butt, Tries to Pee on $30 Million Painting
Everyone's a critic! Especially Carmen Tisch of Denver, who really does not like abstract expressionist Clyfford Still very much, and expressed that displeasure by punching his painting "1957-J no.2." And also rubbing her butt on it.
How to Respond to Media Criticism
If you're a member of the media—and aren't we all, thanks to [platitude about Twitter]?—chances are that you're going to be the subject of some "media criticism" sooner or later. Will you let it destroy you? Why? Handling it like a pro is surprisingly easy!
Frank Kermode, British Literary Critic, Dies at 90
Critic and scholar Frank Kermode has died at 90. Read some excerpts here, and essays here.
Sarah Palin's Goin' Rogue An American Tail, Also: A Review
No, we have not read Sarah Palin's new book, Goin' Rogue. But we can say with some authority that it is the most moving and affecting memoir published in the English language since Speak, Memory.
Either Pigeons Are Brilliant or Art Critics Are Idiots
Pigeons might not be able to tell you what good art is, but they do know it when they see it, according to a Japanese psychologist who trains avian critics.
Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
Alice Hoffman, America's most hypersensitive to criticism novelist, issued a statement this afternoon after publishing Roberta Silman's phone number and calling her names on Twitter after Silman wrote a negative review of Hoffman's new book in the Boston Globe.
