Sam Shepard’s life was as dramatic as his theater
Fear was the renaissance man’s guiding principle
Books and Arts
Wednesday
Uncovering Brian Wilson’s real genius
The long-unfinished Smile reveals the musician’s talent and madness
Sixties Surreal at the Whitney is a bad trip
The show feels like an undergraduate thesis
Why is the Met making medieval art perverse?
Spectrum of Desire is somewhere between blasphemous and libelous
Drowning in the neon swamp of Tron: Ares
Your eyes and your brain cells will hate you for watching this
Are black-metal bands going Christian?
The anarchic music has long been a breeding ground for Christianity
Friday
The free market can’t stop AI actress Tilly Norwood
There’s no economic incentive not to use AI actors – but doing so is morally repulsive
Tuesday
Kamala Harris is living in dreamland
The general impression in 107 Days is one of listlessness, torpor, a failure to really grasp the stakes of what’s happening
Addie E. Citchen’s debut novel is unsettling and ambitious
Dominion offers no answers, only the clear recognition of how power corrodes those bound to it
A compelling account of actor Robert Shaw’s life
Christopher Shaw Myers outlines his uncle’s story with lesser-known information and anecdotes
Inside the Cartel is not your average true-crime memoir
Martin Suarez’s storytelling is precise, even surgical. But it’s the content that burrows under the skin
Unpacking Tucker Carlson’s 9/11 documentary
The documentary claims the Saudis were behind 9/11 – and the CIA then protected them
Adam McEwen’s small masterpieces of the uncanny
It’s a strange time, McEwen reflects, to be an artist
Taylor Swift’s new album balances glitter with grit
The Life of a Showgirl is conceptually mature and compelling
One Battle After Another may be the worst movie ever made
It is a grand, multifaceted masterpiece of badness
The Who’s farewell tour marks the end of an era
The band never lost sight of what first made them great, and what made rock ’n’ roll great
Tuesday
Is Dan Brown finished?
The novelist’s Happy Meal plotting serves up the same constituent parts over and over
Francesca Wade’s Gertrude Stein biography is a study in frustration
The writer’s posthumous reputation and influence continue to manifest themselves in writing, music and theater
Against abstinence-based approaches to sobriety
Katie Herzog has all the serial relapser energy you would expect from the addict who has forsworn AA
Martin Mull’s short stories bring levity to serious themes
One leaves these stories not depressed, but wanting to punch the air in solidarity with these ornery old dudes
