A Throwback Show That Stays Relevant
Culture and entertainment musts from Malcolm Ferguson
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Welcome back to The Daily’s Sunday culture edition, in which one Atlantic writer or editor reveals what’s keeping them entertained. Today’s special guest is Malcolm Ferguson, an assistant editor who has written about the case for Kwanzaa, and why he wishes his family would take up the holiday again.
One of Malcolm’s favorite art pieces is Pool Parlor, by Jacob Lawrence, an exceptional example of the artist’s “dynamic cubism.” Lately, he and his friends have been discussing the merits of Challengers, and he recently started his first watch of Sex and the City. The Carrie-and-Big situation remains as confounding as ever, but he’s enjoyed learning about “the deep inner lives of white, 30-something women”—a perspective he admits knowing “very little about.”
First, here are three Sunday reads from The Atlantic:
- Inside the decision to kill Iran’s Qassem Soleimani
- Mad Max’s George Miller is taking on the apocalypse (again).
- The big AI risk not enough people are seeing
The Culture Survey: Malcolm Ferguson
A painting that I cherish: Pool Parlor, by Jacob Lawrence. Like most people, I was more familiar with Lawrence’s famous Migration Series, a much more raw, somber collection depicting mass African American flight from the South to the North. But Pool Parlor takes the same grim artistic elements—the dark shading, the rigidity, the aggressive and overstated angles of Lawrence’s “dynamic cubism”—and converts them into an easy, effortless work. I’ll probably hang this painting on my wall someday soon.
The television show I’m most enjoying right now: I can’t bring myself to say that I’m fully enjoying this show, but Sex and the City currently has a surprisingly firm hold on me. As with The Sopranos, I initially felt that I’d already consumed much of the series passively, via memes and pop-culture references. But from the very beginning, it was obvious why Sex and the City has maintained such relevance, especially among Gen Zers such as myself. It’s like if a soap opera was actually cool and well produced. I’m currently at the start of Season 5, and I’ve noticed that the ensemble cast develops well; I appreciate that the focus slowly shifts away from Carrie as the seasons progress. (Speaking of, Big and Carrie are about as insufferable together as a main pairing could be. Why are they still friends?)
Samantha’s and Charlotte’s converse storylines—Samantha giving in to love, Charlotte (temporarily) reclaiming her singlehood—are much more compelling to me right now. And the wardrobe is unreal: great fits all around. But more than anything, the show is an interesting study of the pre-smartphone romantic landscape, the pre-smartphone version of New York City, and the deep inner lives of white, 30-something women—a perspective I know very little about. [Related: And Just Like That addresses its Che Diaz problem.]
My favorite way of wasting time on my phone: Although Reddit still has its fair share of dark and scary corners, I find that the sports Subreddits are a quick, accurate, and entertaining way to check the temperature of the most painfully obsessive and devout fans. The NBA Playoffs are happening right now, and a team’s Subreddit will have a live “game thread” for each game, where fans can gather and comment in real time. When a team I’m rooting against starts to collapse, I go straight to the Subreddit game thread to hate-watch fans’ lamentations from afar. It’s truly fun to witness internet communities of spoiled Lakers, Suns, and Heat fans go through the five stages of grief, especially when my team is too horrendous to even stress over. (Go Wizards.) I’ll be doing the same for the NFL when the Ravens start playing.
The culture product my friends are talking about most right now: My friends shifted seamlessly from the Drake-and-Kendrick-beef discussion (Kendrick won) to the Challengers discussion. Everyone wants two boyfriends now … I thought that movie was about tennis! [Related: A sexy tennis thriller—yes, really]
The last debate I had about culture: I wouldn’t call it a debate, but my roommate and I have been discussing how collective memory functions among historically persecuted groups, and it came up again at her Seder meal. She’s Jewish, and I’m African American, so there are plenty of catastrophic events and experiences between us to be memorialized and remembered each year. But what is the line between remembrance and self-victimization or self-othering? Does centering a history of pain and loss obscure the achievements? And what will we tell the generations that come after us, who are even further distanced from that suffering?
I might be thinking about this forever. But right now, to me, the pain will always be important to remember and teach. We wouldn’t be here—I wouldn’t be here—without the scars of others. They inform us and our gains whether we like it or not. And although those scars fade, they never really disappear; they can often be reopened. To decenter them just doesn’t feel right.
The last museum or gallery show that I loved: I visited the National Museum of Anthropology, in Mexico City, last month. It was startlingly beautiful inside and out, and there was a real emphasis on the traces of precolonial Mesoamerica in modern Mexico via art, food, and fashion. I was also struck by the concept of the Tlaltecuhtli, or “Earth Monster.” Some early Mesoamericans believed that the Earth was neither round nor flat, but a gargantuan turtle or alligator whose back they were riding on. I think that’s a very interesting way to perceive Earth, as this sentient, moving creature that we’re just clinging on to. (Honorable mention goes to the Simone Leigh sculpture exhibit, which I saw when it was at the Hirshhorn Museum, in Washington, D.C.)
My favorite blockbuster and favorite art movie: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a blockbuster that feels like everything a kid’s superhero movie is supposed to be: well paced and wonderfully animated, with some real meat to it plot-wise. The dynamic of choosing versus creating your own fate plays out over a diverse gaggle of Spider-people from many dimensions, and the cliff-hanger ending actually surprised me. [Related: A spidey sense we haven’t seen before]
A thought-provoking art film is Nashville, directed by Robert Altman, the guy who also did M*A*S*H. This movie is hard to describe. It’s dense, sharp, grim yet funny, and incredibly American. It features about an hour’s worth of live folk, gospel, and country music, and 24 “main” characters, some of whom are gathered for the political fundraising of the presidential candidate for the Replacement Party. His character is unseen but heard, as his political messaging—and the film’s thesis—blares loudly throughout the city: All of us are deeply involved with politics whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not.
A musical artist who means a lot to me: Roy Ayers, perhaps the most important figure in modern Black music. His work is a convergence of all my favorite genres. From his early, groovy stuff such as Stoned Soul Picnic and Vibrations to his ubiquity in early hip-hop sampling and his generation-linking feature on Tyler, the Creator’s 2015 track “Find Your Wings,” Ayers has made his mark on seemingly every stage and sound of Black music since the 1960s. I’m not sure where my taste would be without him.
The Week Ahead
- Eric, a psychological-thriller miniseries starring Benedict Cumberbatch as a devastated father and puppeteer who searches for his missing 9-year-old son (premieres Thursday on Netflix)
- Young Woman and the Sea, a film based on the true story of the first woman to swim across the English Channel (in theaters Friday)
- Housemates, a novel by Emma Copley Eisenberg about two artistic housemates who go on a road trip of self-discovery (out Tuesday)
Essay
The Unbearable Greatness of Djokovic
By Scott Stossel
What is perhaps most intimidating about Djokovic is the steeliness of his nerve. The ice water in his veins gets chillier as the stakes get higher: The more important the point, the more likely he is to win it. The ATP keeps track of what it calls “pressure stats,” which measure performance on the highest-value, highest-stakes points (break points, tiebreakers, etc). Djokovic, unsurprisingly, has the highest ranking on the pressure-stats list among current players. But he also ranks highest all time by that metric, ahead of Pete Sampras, Nadal, and Federer. Before he lost a tiebreaker to Carlos Alcaraz in the Wimbledon championship last summer, Djokovic had won a staggering 15 straight tiebreakers in major tournaments. When everything is on the line, he rarely falters.
More in Culture
- What’s really epic about Furiosa
- Tennis explains everything.
- The Brooklyn sequel asks the most American of questions about immigration.
- Hollywood’s most pessimistic blockbuster franchise
- The new sound of sexual frustration
- A powerful indictment of the art world
Catch Up on The Atlantic
- Trump’s money problems are becoming a crisis for the entire country.
- The British prime minister bowed to the inevitable.
- New 9/11 evidence points to deep Saudi complicity.
Photo Album
The photographer Jennifer Emerling had been to 22 national parks by the time she was 12 years old. Since then, she hasn’t stopped returning to photograph them. Here are some images from her many pilgrimages to the natural scenes of American beauty.
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