Locked

“Edges of Ailey” edited by Adrienne Edwards

Whitney Museum of American Art, September 2024, 388 pp. If you’ve seen any photographs of the choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931–89), it is quite likely that one of them was by Jack Mitchell, whose archive of Ailey photography (now at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture) includes over 10,000 black-and-white negatives and 1,300 color slides and transparencies. Within this archive is a subarchive of double portraits showing Ailey and his cherished leading

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Dear Men

Dear Men, This is mostly a note to straight, cis men but it also goes out to trans men, queer men, and all who participate in masculinity. If you see yourself in these words, this is a love note to you. Patriarchy (the system in which those who are perceived to belong to the social role of “man” hold the power and those perceived to belong to the social role of “woman” are excluded from

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Janelle Monáe Superstar: A Deconversion Story

The author and Kurt with Flyana Boss members Folayan Omi Kunerede (left) and Bobbi LaNea Taylor. Photo courtesy of Aline Mello. In my last year at the university, I finally started taking advantage of its discount ticket program. When I saw seats for a musical, I thought, Perfect, and got tickets for my friend Kurt and me. The show was Jesus Christ Superstar, which neither of us had ever seen. I was expecting something quirky

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Étonne-moi: Alexey Brodovitch at the Barnes Museum

Alexey Brodovitch. The Sylphs (Les Sylphides), 1935–37.  Art Institute of Chicago. Purchased with funds provided by Karen and Jim Frank. Image courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY. In the go-go 1980s, the last decade when print magazines in the US rode high, the last decade before the internet took over time and space, I was given an impromptu lesson in how to be a team player. Or not. The bottom line:

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‘Just So,’ About Time,’ ‘Since You Asked,’ and ‘Interior’

Just So Bird shadows crossthe pear tree, slashingup or down,as it slowly leafs out—events!The children like to talkabout what isor isn’t likelyto happen.“Some people dye their hairbut not many,” one saysas she colorsthe dog’s bobgreen.The effortto be definiteis cute, I think:the arch in the middleof her top lipjust so About Time 1“It all happened so fast,”God said.2Everyone knows what “once” meansJust as everyone knowsthat “now”is a new set upeven if nothing much has changed. 3Some

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My Abortion Name

Was not mine becauseeven in HS, I knew I wanted no oneto track me down in later yearsor the present for the shamefulact of even getting a pap smearat PP, a pregnancy test ora procedure. So many wordsthat start with the letter P.My abortion name had to be easyto respond to when I came outof twilight, like Emma or Mandy.Like, when someone talked to mein the locker room where Wednesdayabortion patients changedinto white paper robes

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Against Language

Old Westbury Gardens, Smoggy Afternoon, by the author.  The biggest book I own is the Norton Shakespeare, Second Edition. It’s all the plays, annotated: 3,600 pages. Lately I’ve used it to prop up my computer, to enable a more flattering angle on Zoom calls. In the fall of 2020, I was meeting every week on Zoom with a class taught by the writer Anne Carson and her husband Robert Currie. Anne announced one week that

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The Thread: On ‘Judy Chicago: Herstory’ at The New Museum, New York, NY October 12, 2023–March 3, 2024

Judy Chicago, 2023. Photo by Donald Woodman. Here’s an origin story for you. Just as America was emerging from the Great Depression, a progressive Jewish couple from Chicago, Arthur and May Cohen, welcomed their first red diaper baby: Judy. Six years later, when Judy was home alone with her little brother, she heard a knock at the door and opened it to two FBI agents. When May arrived home, she found the men interrogating her

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Let Me Tell You What She Means: The Rebranding of Joan Didion

We know how Joan Didion saw the world because she told us herself, quoting a psychiatrist’s report written during her 1968 breakdown: It is as though she feels deeply that all human effort is foredoomed to failure, a conviction which seems to push her further into a dependent, passive withdrawal. In her view[,] she lives in a world of people moved by strange, conflicted, poorly comprehended, and, above all, devious motivations . . . A

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From ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’

Alumni Sweater I graduated from UC Berkeley the summer of ’88 I am a crowning achievement of liberality I often wear my Berkeley sweater some thirty years after its relevance to me near as I can tell when the fabric clings to my perfect goddamn muscle daddy gym body to the rest of the world all my bullshit is rendered virtually scentless it’s a look that reads “I fuck white boys and voted for Biden”

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