Friday procrastination: link love – Peru, prisoners, and ‘Prison Idol’
What Kirsty has been reading
Hinche, Haiti
Ben Keene looks at Hinche, Haiti.
The Super Bowl and Super Tuesday: How’d They Get So “Super”?
Ben Zimmer takes a closer look at the use of the word “super.”
Turkey, Chocolate, and Italian Cuisine
Gillian Riley looks at the role of chocolate in Italian cuisine.
ERISA Preemption in the City by the Bay
Zelinsky reflects on a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision and its affects on health care reform.
Gog and Magog
Ben’s Place of the week is Gog and Magog.
Friday procrastination: link love – OED, BEA and NPR!
Lots of Friday link love!
The Academy Awards: A Look At Jessica Tandy
A tribute to the Academy Awards and Jessica Tandy.
Madison Square Park Sculpture: von Rydingsvard
A closer look at the art of Von Rydingsvard.
T.S. Eliot: an excerpt
In the New York Times Art Section today, Michiko Kakutani writes about British poet Craig Raine’s new book on T.S. Eliot, calling Raine’s description a “new, more accessible T. S. Eliot, an Eliot he describes as a virtuosic fox in terms of style, and a single-minded hedgehog when it came to themes.”
Geneive Abdo on Ingrid Mattson
Honoring Ingrid Mattson.
Origins of hip hop: “If I stop, I’ll die.”
Today we’ll look at the spoken word roots of hip hop by examining the life and career of one of the greatest stand-up comedians of all time; Richard Pryor. Here is the entry on Richard Pryor from upcoming eight-volume ‘African American National Biography’.
Miami Vice: Death of the Cop-Action Film?
Crime Films: A Monthly Column By Nicole Rafter Miami Vice is a major disappointment in an already frustrating movie summer. I had hoped for more not only because of the stylishness of the 1980s television series on which it is based but also because director Michael Mann’s Heat (1995) and Collateral (2004) had proved him […]
In the beginning: hip hop’s early influences
In the mid-1970s the cultural shockwave known as hip hop emerged from the economic paralysis of New York City, especially the neglected neighborhoods in the Bronx. However, while hip hop music was born in New York, it speaks to a long line of black American and African diasporic cultural traditions.
African American Lives
Quincy Jones
Jones, Quincy (14 Mar. 1933 –), jazz musician, composer, and record, television, and film producer, was born Quincy Delight Jones Jr. on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, the son of Sarah (maiden name unknown) and Quincy Jones Sr., a carpenter who worked for a black gangster ring that ran the Chicago ghetto. When Quincy […]
On relativism
If relativism, then, is often just a distraction, is it a valuable one or a dangerous one? I think it all depends. Sometimes we need reminding of alternative ways of thinking, alternative practices and ways of life, from which we can learn and which we have no reason to condemn. We need to appreciate our […]