reportage, essays, criticism, etc.
On Bushwick and gentrification for The New Yorker for the September 2, 2024 edition of Goings on About Town. “Not too long ago (ten years), in a neighborhood only slightly far away (Bushwick), poets, rockers, and actors took the L train just far enough to find a place to gentrify, and then put down shallow roots.”
On Julian Casablancas for CREEM “Across from me, fidgeting with his coffee cup, is Julian Casablancas, frontman of the Strokes, a New York City band that was heralded as the saviors of rock ’n’ roll in the early aughts and widely credited with jump-starting a number of decade-defining cultural movements, among them the “post-punk revival” and the “indie sleaze aesthetic,” the latter of which centers on leather jackets, cigarettes, and skinny jeans, and which oh-so-many socialites would lead you to believe is experiencing a resurgence in certain low-lit corners of downtown Manhattan. But we are not here to talk about downtown Manhattan, or cigarettes, or skinny jeans, or postpunk, or even the Strokes.”
On Seinfeld & Mexican cocktails for The New Yorker for the November 25, 2024 edition of Goings on About Town. “In one of the last episodes of “Seinfeld,” Cosmo Kramer, far from the comforts of the Upper West Side, rings Jerry for help. “I’m at 1st and 1st,” he wails. “How can the same street intersect with itself? I must be at the nexus of the universe!” Patrons of Superbueno, whose moody scarlet lighting casts a lambent glow on that very corner in the East Village, will also find themselves at a crossroads, one involving a whirlwind of Mexican street culture, neon pop art, and, as one regular recently told a pair of parched newcomers, ‘really, really fucking delicious cocktails.’”
On Zakir Hussain for Rolling Stone “In Islamic tradition, the father of a newborn is expected to recite the adhan, or call to prayer, in his child’s right ear, so that the first sounds the baby hears upon entering this world are exaltations of God’s supremacy, setting them on a path of grace and virtue. It should come as no surprise, then, that the first sounds Zakir Hussain heard when he was born, one distant March in Bombay, were not words of faith, but tabla rhythms whispered by his father, Ustad Alla Rakha, himself a master of the instrument. For Hussain, destiny was not a dying breath — it was a morning song, a patriarch’s auspicious prophecy.”
On Fontaines D.C. for CREEM “Fontaines D.C. in the flesh are nothing short of animalistic glory. At the postpunkers’ recent gig in Brooklyn, the crowd moved en masse—a seething, kinetic chaos that wreaked havoc on the dance floor. Between songs, an older patron in front of me pulled out a crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds, lit one with a match, cheefed the entirety of it in four biblical drags, threw the butt down, stomped it out, and then, still reeling from the buzz, promptly fell flat on her face. About 10 feet back, a young man stood with his shoulders scrunched impossibly high, jaw clenched tighter than a junkie’s on the last score of the night. His hips jerked so erratically that they couldn’t have borne a resemblance to anything other than the crazed thrashings of a mutt in heat. He was, to my knowledge, completely sober. The next day, I mention him to Grian Chatten, the band’s frontman, in a park in West Philadelphia. ‘Oh, yeah,” he responds, smiling wryly. “That was our manager.’”
On ice cream, wine, and scenesters for The New Yorker “Like so many of New York’s timeworn thoroughfares, Forsyth Street boasts a complicated history. What is now a string of trendy boutiques and eateries straddling Chinatown and the Lower East Side was home, in the early aughts, to a vicious gang that once beat an informant with pipes “until his bones snapped,” according to one U.S. Attorney. Well, out with the racketeering and in with the ice cream.”
On Radiohead’s bassist for Monster Children “Odds are, Colin Greenwood is the most famous guy you’ve never heard of. In fact, if you’re a fan of turn-of-the-century rock, there’s a very good chance that his music has been either the a) object of your worship, b) wellspring of your tears, c) soundtrack to your love, or, perhaps most likely, d) all of the above. He has been nominated for twenty Grammy Awards; he has won six of them. His records have sold tens of millions of copies across the world. He happens to be, for whatever it’s worth, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, that hallowed Ohio mausoleum. But his name recognition, or lack thereof, stems from two simple facts: 1) he is a bassist, and 2) bassists almost never get their dues.”
fact-checking, copy-editing, etc.
The New Yorker by Charles Bethea
A Cursed Ship and the Fate of Its Sunken Gold
The New Yorkerby Lauren Collins
Under the Carpetbag
The New Yorkerby John McPhee
The Kingpin Who Kidnapped Migrants for Ransom
The New Yorkerby Ed Caesar
Matt Gaetz’s Chaos Agenda
The New Yorkerby Dexter Filkins
A Surf Legend’s Long Ride
The New Yorker by William Finnegan
The Warhol “Superstar” Candy Darling and the Fight to Be Seen
The New Yorker by Hilton Als
What Have Fourteen Years of Conservative Rule Done to Britain?
The New Yorker by Sam Knight
Brady Corbet’s Outsider American Epic
The New Yorkerby Alexandra Schwartz
Should a Country Speak a Single Language?
The New Yorkerby Samanth Subramanian