Society of the Spectacle

By: Peggy Nelson

Megan Archer is court painter to our modern aristocracy of celebrity. Like the subjects of Velazquez, Sargent and Warhol, her famous faces are a mirror of importance and power, but not their own: ours. [Beauty […]

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Winds of Magic (2): The Real Peter Pan

By: James Parker

On January 16, 2004, outside the California courthouse where he had just been arraigned on seven counts of child molestation and two counts of administering an “intoxicating agent with intent to commit a felony,” Michael […]

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Jacko and Farrah

By: Joshua Glenn

Earlier this week, Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam gave my generational periodization scheme a shout-out. Beam writes: Glenn has devoted considerable time — too much time, frankly — to slicing up the post World War […]

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Lost Boy

By: Matthew Battles

AMIDST THE CYCLE of encomiums spurred by Michael Jackson’s death last week, his weirdness has been treated as an unfortunate epiphenomenon and distraction from his greatness. But the weird — a thoroughgoing weird without stint […]

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