themarginalian.org

How to Keep Criticism from Sinking Your Soul: Walt Whitman and the Discipline of Creative Confidence

each point of E.'s statement was unanswerable, no judge's charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear the points better put — and then I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way.

jefftweedy

I Wish I Was Your Mother (Mott the Hoople cover)

Such an evocative and weird lyric. Beautifully empathetic and sad. I tried to do an acoustic version, where I don't really scream it, but it just doesn't communicate. So I had to stand up and sing full-throated.

honest-broker.com

The 10 Most Popular Articles from The Honest Broker (2021-2026)

When you start writing directly for readers, without intermediaries, that begins to happen naturally. Above all, I decide to treat the reader as a trusted friend—with the hope that you might extend the same courtesy to me.

longreads.com

Who Is Black Comedy For?

Black comedy's revolutionary potential is strongest when it ignores the other eyes upon it—or, as Collins puts it, "Black comedy that primarily serves Black audiences." Where Bennett errs, however, is in holding up the era of crossover appeal as the apex of Black comic achievement.

themarginalian.org

George Saunders on the Antidote to Regret

At the end of my life, I know I won't be wishing I'd held more back, been less effusive, more often stood on ceremony, forgiven less, spent more days oblivious to the secret wishes and fears of the people around me.

3quarksdaily.com

Teenage Frida Kahlo’s Moving Letters

as an artist, as a lover, as a person who lived with extraordinary vulnerability, extraordinary courage, and the precocious awareness that the conversation between the two is the measure of a life.

themarginalian.org

Do Not Spare Yourself

there is no damnation greater than spending our allotted days in the catatonia of comfort and certainty, our inner lives automated by habit and halogen lit by convenience.

honest-broker.com

I'm Recommending 14 New Albums

Most of them are hidden from view in the stagnant mainstream culture of our time, where tired formulas and AI slop prevail. These are the real deal, and give me reason for optimism about the future of our music culture.

readtheprofile.com

The Profile: The $30 billion AI startup & the Mango founder’s mysterious death

We are not who we say we are. We are how we move through the world. This is something I notice more and more when reporting. The truth usually lies in the small, in-between, seemingly ordinary moments.

themarginalian.org

The Courage to Be Yourself: Virginia Woolf on How to Hear Your Soul

Once conform, once do what other people do because they do it, and a lethargy steals over all the finer nerves and faculties of the soul. She becomes all outer show and inward emptiness; dull, callous, and indifferent.

currincy

Whatever Else You’re Doing Today, Listen to Annahstasia’s New Live Album

Her voice welds might with vulnerability, finding profound strength by admitting that there are things she is still seeking.

themarginalian.org

How Two Souls Can Interact with One Another: Simone de Beauvoir on Love and Friendship

What is worthwhile, is friendship… this profound mutual confidence between [two people], and this joy of knowing that the other exists.

honest-broker.com

AI Actress Tilly Norwood Drops a Video—and It's Cringe on Steroids

The video not only looks fake, but creepy too—Tilly has a seasick smile and her nausea is palpably felt by the viewer.

themarginalian.org

Doris Lessing on How to Read a Book and How to Read the World

There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement.

currincy

How E Street Keyboard Giant Roy Bittan Played on David Bowie’s “Station to Station”

So many of my interviews these days feel like jousting with someone's soul, trying to get to the personal core of what makes them an artist.