Ocean Vuong on smalltown queer life, Studio Ghibli’s influence, and why ‘even fiction is an artful lie’ (EXCLUSIVE)
Renowned writer Ocean Vuong has a rare talent: not only is he a celebrated poet but a bestselling author too.
https://attitude.co.uk/culture/ocea…
The Poems of Seamus Heaney review – collected works reveal his colossal achievement
The complete works, including previously unpublished poems and expert notes, are brought together in one volume for the first time.
https://theguardian.com/books/2025/…
Brandon Taylor on the Quandary of Black Art
The author discusses his latest novel, “Minor Black Figures,” and the discourse around racial subjectivity.
https://newyorker.com/culture/the-n…
Enslavement, immolation and a HIV diagnosis: the artists expressing harsh truths with collage
From queer relationships and migration to AI and colonial histories, a huge range of artists have spliced together photography and archive material to create images that challenge history as we know it.
https://theguardian.com/artanddesig…
From the Gaza Flotilla: “I’m Here Because My Jewish Heritage Demands It”
I hope that fellow Jews will join me in redefining their approach to atonement and move toward courageous action to put an end to this horrific genocide.
https://thenation.com/article/world…
The Lost Soul of Oakland: Living Large in Lower Rockridge
The neighborhood in Oakland where I live, Lower Rockridge—or Baja Rockridge, as I like to call it—is shifting from a community rooted in relationships to one increasingly defined by transactions.
https://commonedge.org/the-lost-sou…
Kerry James Marshall on Making ‘the Paintings Nobody Else Is Making’
The artist’s blockbuster survey across nearly five decades at the Royal Academy of Art in London tackles Black history in all its complexity.
https://nytimes.com/2025/09/25/arts…
What to Make of the Mother Who Made You
A new memoir by Arundhati Roy, about a formidable matriarch, joins a host of recent books in which daughters reckon with mothers who are too much, not enough, or both at once.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2025…
How MoMA’s New Director Welcomed a Cuban Master to the Museum
Cuba balked at lending the museum work, but Christophe Cherix threw his firepower into assembling a global survey of Wifredo Lam.
https://nytimes.com/2025/09/17/arts…
Power Shift
In New Orleans, locals frustrated by an unaccountable energy utility are building a network of community resilience hubs. At the heart of the project is a question: How do we organize power?
https://placesjournal.org/article/p…
A Tender New Biography Emphasizes James Baldwin’s Romantic Side
In “Baldwin: A Love Story,” Nicholas Boggs goes far beyond other scholars in tracing Baldwin’s relationships and their role in his work.
https://nytimes.com/2025/08/19/book…
Alexis Madrigal on Oakland’s port, gentrification, and the importance of renters
The “Pacific Circuit” author and host of KQED’s Forum is preoccupied with inequity in Oakland. And he’s about to launch a community space that he hopes will become a beacon of resilience.
https://oaklandside.org/2025/08/20/…
Jeffrey Epstein and the Movement of the Planets
A piece by our pal Noah Kennedy.
https://thehumanist.com/commentary/…
The Lives and Loves of James Baldwin
An older generation dismissed him as passé; a newer one has recast him as a secular saint. But Baldwin’s true message remains more unsettling than either camp recognizes.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2025…
How the Poet James Schuyler Wrung Sense from Sensibility
Schuyler once told a friend that “life had been after him with a sledgehammer.” But the poet’s work was sharp and humane, a marvel of twentieth-century literature.
https://newyorker.com/magazine/2025…
Michael Shaikh: The Last Sweet Bite
Michael Shaikh, author of The Last Sweet Bite, on how food is weaponized in conflict zones to starve bodies and cultures, as erasure becomes policy and preservation a form of resistance.
https://guernicamag.com/michael-sha…
Framing Choice
Our pal Rocky writes about material choice for Arcade.
https://arcadenw.org/print-magazine…
What Happened When Their Art Was Banned
Nine artists on how American censorship changed their work and their lives.
https://nytimes.com/2025/07/31/t-ma…
Life Inside a Singular Artists’ Enclave in Brooklyn, in “The Candy Factory”
Cory Jacobs and Jason Schmidt’s documentary short follows a creative community held together by collaboration and the efforts of a woman who is part landlady, part fairy godmother.
https://newyorker.com/culture/the-n…
A Sensualist’s History of Gay Marriage and Immigration
In a new book, “Deep House,” the author Jeremy Atherton Lin combines memoir and cultural history to expose the varied border crossings involved in same-sex love past and present.
https://newyorker.com/culture/criti…
Designing for Humanity in a Car-Centric City
Architect Ana Lasala shares what has worked (and almost worked) in six LA urban design projects.
https://getty.edu/news/ana-lasala-s…
Private Worlds
Public goods underpin democracy. The billionaires and technofascists ruling our new gilded age threaten to rob us of the things we hold in common.
https://placesjournal.org/article/p…
Zohran Mamdani and Mahmoud Khalil Are in on the Joke
What it feels like to laugh when the world expects you to disappear.
https://newyorker.com/news/essay/zo…
Dateline January 2026: Mayor Mamdani Unveils His Affordable Housing Plan!
For reasons that defy credibility, New York State continues to pass on collecting the Stock Transfer Tax that would, if collected, reap over $14 billion a year in new tax revenue. Because of heavy lobbying by Wall Street, the tax has not been collected since 1981.
https://commonedge.org/dateline-jan…
His Modernist Ideas for L.A. Living Were Dismissed. Now, They Could Be a Blueprint for Rebuilding
If Gregory Ain’s vision for a city filled with housing like his Avenel Cooperative had won out, “we would be in a radically different place.”
https://dwell.com/article/gregory-a…
How ‘Gay’ Became an Identity in Art
Two groundbreaking exhibitions in Chicago explore the shift in portrayals of same-sex attraction. They are being staged at a fraught moment.
https://nytimes.com/2025/07/12/arts…
