On growing up, writing, and succumbing to bullshit.

“The palace doors flew open. It was him. It was Rick Owens, the American-born designer known to his fans as the Lord of Darkness.”

On the relationship between rivalry and creativity.

Frankie Manning was the greatest swing dancer alive. Then the world forgot about him.

How a ragtag group of artists launched an art-entertainment empire.

“The ‘hard’–science fiction writers dismiss everything except, well, physics, astronomy, and maybe chemistry. Biology, sociology, anthropology—that’s not science to them, that’s soft stuff. They’re not that interested in what human beings do, really. But I am. I draw on the social sciences a great deal. I get a lot of ideas from them, particularly from anthropology. When I create another planet, another world, with a society on it, I try to hint at the complexity of the society I’m creating, instead of just referring to an empire or something like that.”

From 1968-1973, the three teenage Wiggin sisters, guided by a domineering father, played their strange music at New Hampshire ballrooms and recorded a single album. The Philosophy of the World LP goes for over $500 today, but the intervening decades have not been kind to the Wiggins.

The strange life of a 16-year-old model.

Is the Chinese government behind one of the boldest art-crime waves in history?

On the life and career of Richard Pryor, as he neared the end of both.

“It takes this huge amount of will and energy for anything to happen to you.”

An argument on the meaning of Cubism settled.

After two decades spent making movies, including last year’s record-
breaking Girls Trip, Malcolm D. Lee wishes he could stop paying his dues.

The first female Asian-American playwright on Broadway takes aim at identity and watches the audience squirm.

“The academy’s prestige has been shattered, probably forever,” by allegations of sexual harassment and corruption.

A profile of Mister Rogers.

A profile of the painter.

On the unlikely friendship between Nelson Algren and the young writer during the final years of Algren’s life.

It was June of 1980 when Nelson called me breathlessly from the highway.

At Inhotim, Bernardo Paz commissioned the Jurassic Park of contemporary art. Then the Brazilian government started investigating him.

When the music of Vivaldi and Mozart are used to repel the homeless from sidewalks and Burger Kings, does it still glorify the dignity of humanity?

“There has to be some pleasure in this job, and that’s it. To go around in disguise. To act a character. To pass oneself off as what one is not. To pretend.”

The creator of Wonder Woman makes the case for superheroes.

A profile of New York City Ballet’s resident choreographer.

The battle for the old man with “snots running down his nose / Greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes.”

At home with the beloved writer and illustrator.