Accustomed to Dead Kids
The Dead Kid Poems
Southern California poet Alexis Rhone Fancher offers a musical rendition on the theme “guns matter/kids do not.”
poetry
Quarantine
Southern Review
Months before the public became aware of Covid-19, the poet Quinn Lewis used the word to depict a chosen escape from normal life and the ensuing comforts “inside/the walls.”
books
Inquisition Mode: Victor Serge’s Final Notebooks
London Review of Books
A defender of the Bolshevik revolution and a decades-long critic of Stalinism, Serge in his final notebook details the fight against fascism, capital and the Soviet bureaucracy by a not uncritical intimate of Trotsky who remained a lifelong Marxist.
books
On Tyranny
The Irish Times
This is a moment to revisit this important book. "Snyder is calling for moral courage," writers reviewer Early. "Don’t be afraid to stand out. Don’t obey immoral orders. Don’t abandon professional ethics. Don’t forget to vote."
film
‘Impunity Is the Story of Our Times' - An Interview With Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer
American Prospect
In the face of impunity, there is a sacred role for the storyteller. We can tell stories which invite people to confront painful truths. To combat the lies of impunity, you are doing the task of the child in The Emperor’s New Clothes.
tv
Is 'The Alienist' a Critique of Capitalism or a Pro-Neoliberal Narrative?
PopMatters
Author Caleb Carr's The Alienist explores the 19th century psychiatric debate between free will and determinism. TNT's nearly identical adaptation of the novel, however, comes up with a completely different conclusion.
books
The Southern Key: Class, Race, & Radicalism in the 1930s & 1940s
New York Labor History Association
The Southern Key argues that much of what is important in politics and society today was largely shaped by the successes and failures of the labor movements of the 30s and 40s, notably the failures of southern labor organizing during this period.
music
Why the Chicks Dropped Their "Dixie"
The New Yorker
The all-female country band, formerly "The Dixie Chicks," which survived an instance of proto-cancel culture for its politics in the past, again wants to meet the current moment.
books
Unsteady Work
Dissent
"'Temporary' is the rare novel that reckons with unsteady work," says reviewer Marsh. "If the book is a surreal, absurd, sometimes self-defeating entry in the office genre, that is because temporary work is all those things."
film
'John Lewis: Good Trouble’ A Portrait of an American Hero
Rolling Stone
John Lewis declares that, during the 1960s, he was arrested “a few times.” Then the elder statesman and éminence grise of the civil rights movement pauses before correcting himself in front of the large Dallas crowd he’s addressing: “40 times…"
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