Author: Michael Quinn

Arts, Books

An ‘F’ grade for an ‘A’ City

Review of Kevin Baker’s The Fall of a Great American City: New York and the Urban Crisis of Affluence Years ago, I came across a seldom-seen friend on Houston Street. Ranee was sitting on a bench in front of an American Apparel, wearing sunglasses and eating an ice cream cone, looking very self-satisfied.  We marveled at the unlikely odds of […]

Arts, Books

Stagg party

Review of Sleeveless: Fashion, Image, Media, New York 2011-2019 by Natasha Stagg In another era, the worst thing you could be accused of was selling out.  But for a younger generation, it’s become the objective: the new version of the American dream. No matter how old you are, the corporatization of our culture makes it common to talk about things […]

Arts, Books

Four authors and an actor to gather in a 1920s Brooklyn ballroom to honor late writer Stephen Dixon

The late novelist and short story writer Stephen Dixon will be honored by authors and an actor at “Celebrating Stephen Dixon,” a literary event hosted by Murmrr in the Union Temple of Brooklyn, near Grand Army Plaza, on Thursday, February 27,, 2020 at 7:30 PM. Dixon, a Manhattan native, died this past November at the age of 83. Describing himself […]

Arts, Books

Quinn on Books: ‘Horror Stories’ by Liz Phair

Horror Stories, the memoir by recording artist Liz Phair, is not a bad book, but it’s an odd one with which to have made her debut as a writer, and it’s certainly not the one fans of her music will wish she’d have written. Despite Phair’s assertion that it’s her “effort to slow everything down and take a look at […]