Celebrating Community
Review of TV Snapshots: An Archive of Everyday Life, by Lynn Spigel Review by Michael Quinn For a long stretch of years, I lived without a TV. What do you do at night?, people would ask me, more concerned than curious, as if there was only one thing you could do and one thing you needed to do it. As […]
Review of My Perfect Life, by Lynda Barry Review by Michael Quinn In the `90s, when I was in college, a friend showed me a book from her women’s studies course. She thought I might like it. It was a comic book with a bright pink cover with a drawing of a homely-looking girl standing in front of a mirror. […]
We are children for only a short time, but spend the rest of our lives making sense of our childhoods. It’s an impressionable period of so many firsts. We soak them up like a sponge. In his heartfelt coming-of-age memoir One Headlight, Matt Caprioli (a former arts editor of this paper) wrings out his origin story as a gay man […]
Review of Walking through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black, by Cookie Mueller Review by Michael Quinn Among the arty crowd, there might be two kinds of people: those who never heard of Cookie Mueller and those who are obsessed with her. She was the ultimate free spirit. Born in Baltimore in 1949, she was, by her own account, […]
Go to a mirror. Look into your eyes—the same ones you had as a child. When you look into them, whom do you see? Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood, DaMaris B. Hill’s new book of narrative poems, fulfills a pledge the author made to not only acknowledge the child within, but “to carry my girl self on my shoulders […]
Review of Behind the Mask: Living Alone in the Epicenter by Kate Walter Review by Michael Quinn The start of the pandemic was like a game of musical chairs. The music suddenly stopped. We all scrambled for safety. We worried for (or laughed at) the ones without a spot (the pandemic also revealed the mean-spirited among us). But we all […]
Although the popularity of Airbnb has skyrocketed in recent years, many people still enjoy staying in hotels. One of the reasons is having someone to clean up after you. But what if that person had another reason for being there? For three weeks in 1981, Sophie Calle worked as a chambermaid in a Venetian hotel. While cleaning 12 rooms on […]
Review of Carpenters: The Musical Legacy, by Mike Cidoni Lennox and Chris May, with Richard Carpenter Review by Michael Quinn Two journalists approached musician Richard Carpenter to get his blessing on a book they were developing on the band that he’d he fronted in the 1970s and ’80s with his sister Karen (now deceased). Richard offered more than his approval. […]
Review of Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Ferocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis Review by Michael Quinn My partner is a Christian. He’s been seeking a spiritual home. Prior to the pandemic, he spent many Sundays trying out different churches throughout Brooklyn and Manhattan. Some, he felt, had a drowsy, […]
Drag queen Linda Simpson has been a unique presence in New York City nightlife since the 1980s. She’s not known for barn-burning performances (her longstanding gig is as a Bingo hostess) or for being a look queen (her off-the-rack outfits veer toward the pedestrian, capped with an out-of-the-bag, shake-and-go red wig). Her wisecracks and corny sense of humor are as […]