When I met William Finn in 2005, at work on “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” he was seated in his office in front of what looked like a trash heap but might have been a desk. On a couch nearby, one of his collaborators sank slowly beneath a rising tide of detritus; when … Read more
Each year, T’s editor in chief, Hanya Yanagihara, commissions a different artist or designer to create an installation on the grounds of the Villa Necchi Campiglio, a grand 1930s-era private home turned museum in Milan. The occasion: a party to celebrate the beginning of the city’s annual Salone del Mobile design fair. Past artists have … Read more
▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube 5. Big Black: “L Dopa” Steve Albini’s punk-electronic band Big Black revved up a relentless drum machine behind ferociously noisy guitars — a favorite Sleigh Bells tactic. The narrator of “L Dopa” is a patient with sleeping sickness, unwillingly awakened by the drug L Dopa — and … Read more
Film at Lincoln Center, the nonprofit organization that programs the New York Film Festival, has named the British movie executive Daniel Battsek its next president. From 2016 until early 2024, Battsek, 66, was chairman of the British production company Film4, overseeing the financing of “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017) and “The Banshees of Inisherin” … Read more
A satire of expatriate life in trendy Berlin, a tale of an antiquarian book dealer stuck in a time loop, and a fictionalized retelling of a migrant boat tragedy in the English Channel, are among the six titles that will compete for this year’s International Booker Prize, the award’s organizers announced on Tuesday. Perhaps the … Read more
Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Taylor Swift and Kanye West. Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis. Elton John and Madonna? In the annals of celebrity feuds, the one between these two music industry titans does not rank particularly high. In fact, you’d be forgiven for forgetting that they had a dispute decades ago that remained unresolved. … Read more
In South of Midnight, the regional folk tales of Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi take center stage during a sorrowful adventure embellished by magical realism and strands of hope. The difficult history of one girl’s community unfolds in a world inspired by the humid swamps and bayous near New Orleans and the dusty sawmills of LaSalle … Read more
We are living, all of us, in an exhausting world, and the Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka is not immune. You don’t become as profoundly invested in art and politics as he has been over his long life unless you care to your core about the path that we as a species are charting. “I’m a … Read more
He was often provocative and absolute, only to change his mind and contradict himself with equal conviction. Laurent Bayle, who succeeded Boulez at IRCAM and Cité de la Musique, and recently published the book “Pierre Boulez, Aujourd’hui” (“Pierre Boulez Today”), said, “There is no ideologue in music like him.” Because Boulez was so powerful, his … Read more
