cultural commentary from the desk of Don Shewey
CONSENSUS
Consensus is the folly of control freaks. It is not effective nor expressive. In ACT-UP, if I wanted to do something and you did not want to do it, I would find other people who wanted to do it and you would go do something else. Doesn’t that make sense? Collaboration only works between people with similar goals and desires.
— Sarah Schulman
Aside from Roz Chast’s wonderful cover and a handful of funny cartoons (see my favorite, by Emily Flake, below), this issue is noteworthy for William Finnegan’s satisfying report on how Minnesota governor Scott Walker’s anti-union crusade has backfired on him and Nick Paumgarten’s entertaining depiction of the social scene at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
After my mother died, all my sentences began with “After my mother died.” After my mother died, all I wanted to do was fuck.
— Holly Hughes, World Without End
“Happy Lovers at Last United,” Morrissey
“E. Watson,” the Decemberists
“Fair,” Ben Folds University A Capella
“Red Bats with Teeth,” Angelo Badalamenti (Lost Highway OST)
“East Harlem,” Beirut
“Goodnight, California,” Kathleen Edwards
“Love I’ve Never Known,” John Legend
“Harrowdown Hill,” Thom Yorke
“Lymph Nodes,” Dennis Cooper/Chris Cochrane (Them OCR)
“Stickin’ It to Myself,” Jonathan Coulton
“It’s Been So Long,” Ernest Tubb
“Dynamite,” Taio Cruz
“Swizzle Stick,” T-Bone Burnett
“Sea Lion Woman,” Feist
“Come Into My House,” Queen Latifah (Precious OST)
“And It Rained All Night,” Thom Yorke
“Alive in Us,” Darkness Falls
“Homeward These Shoes,” Iron & Wine
“Mingusings,” Of Montreal
“Cocoon,” Bjork
“Soy Loco Por Ti, America,” Los Van Van & Carlinhos Brown
“Snow White in Appalachia,” David Sylvian
“Come on Home to Me,” Tracey Thorn
“Cloud of Unknowing,” Rickie Lee Jones
“Always,” Edie Brickell
“New Orleans,” Emmylou Harris
“Late Late Show,” Sutton Foster
“Complaint Department,” Lykke Li
“Throb,” Janet Jackson
My review of Eugene O’Neill’s Early Plays, the collaboration between Richard Maxwell’s NYC Players and the Wooster Group at St. Ann’s Warehouse, has just been published on CultureVulture.net. Check it out here and let me know what you think.
another eye opens 