By: Mark Kingwell

When, towards the end of her life, VIRGINIA WOOLF (1882-1941), pioneer of literary modernism, met Sigmund Freud, pioneer of psychic spelunking, the latter presented her with a narcissus. It is not clear what Freud meant […]

By: Ingrid Schorr

Idealistic, dogged, and deeply influenced by the writings of Whitehead and Kant, ROBERT MOTHERWELL (1915-91) welcomed any opportunity to make visible his ethic, which, he wrote, was “my identity as a man.” Though his 1950 […]

By: Joe Alterio

For Europhiles who wish they were smoking Gauloises on a balcony somewhere, the plunk-plunk of DJANGO REINHARDT’s (1910-53) simple but completely original jazz stylings evoke a more romantic time. However, Reinhardt’s cultural appeal is more […]

By: David Smay

The writer best known in his time for Sailor Steve Costigan and Breckinridge Elkins conjured something more rare when he created Conan the Barbarian: a pop cultural icon. ROBERT E. HOWARD (1906-36) might be the […]

By: Greg Rowland

He took the weight of English sexual anxiety on his shoulders.

By: Annie Nocenti

Every child dreams of running away and joining the circus. The 12-year-old FEDERICO FELLINI (1920-93) actually did it, kicking off his enduring love affair with spectacle. Early works like La Strada (1954) and Nights of […]

By: Brian Berger

Forget the breasts, the wigs, and, recently, the plastic surgery. Consider instead DOLLY PARTON (born 1946), the fourth of twelve children from a farming family in Locust Ridge, Tenn., as she arrives in Nashville, 1964. […]

By: Katie Hennessey

A high school dropout who learned his trade on the Borscht Belt summer circuit, DANNY KAYE’s (1913-87) first taste of Broadway fame came with the 1941 Gershwin-Weill tongue-twister “Tchaikovsky (and other Russians),” in which he […]

By: Lynn Peril

At the age of 15, ARI UP (Arianna Forster, born 1962) was lead singer of England’s all-girl punk band The Slits. No creamy underage dream vixen, she: Up was a teen Medusa who wasn’t about […]

By: Franklin Bruno

Recalling SUSAN SONTAG (1933-2004) as “a leading public intellectual” — a category she did not invent, but perhaps perfected — is no substitute for rereading the early, electrifying essays collected in Against Interpretation and Styles […]

By: Matthew De Abaitua

Few cultural scraps are as redolent of lo-fi VHS genre pleasures than a movie trailer with JOHN CARPENTER’s (born 1948) name above the title and his own analog synth score. Carpenter’s breakthrough was Dark Star […]

By: Lucy Sante

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART (Don Van Vliet, born 1941) is — like Thelonious Monk or Alfred Jarry — an artist who describes a world a few clicks away from the one that pedestrian sorts like you or […]

By: Douglas Wolk

The most enduring recording of SLICK RICK (Richard Walters, aka MC Ricky D and Rick the Ruler, born 1965) is probably his guest appearance on Doug E. Fresh’s “La Di Da Di” in 1985. But […]

By: Tim Carmody

He defamiliarized science rather than taming it.

By: Mark Kingwell