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Dylan, Unencumbered

"How long can it go on?"
by Katrina Forrester via n+1 on August 3, 2020
A printed advertisement for "The Bookman" depicting a fish reacting to "The Bookman" on a hook.

The Power of Flawed Lists

How "The Bookman" invented the best seller.
by Elizabeth Della Zazzera via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 27, 2020

Where Were You in ‘73?

In the turbulent 1970s, the balm of pop cultural nostalgia set the tone for today's political reaction.
by Jason Tebbe via Tropics of Meta on July 16, 2020
Carl Reiner on stage holding a microphone.

Carl Reiner’s Life Should Remind Us: If You Like Laughing, Thank FDR and the New Deal

Reiner, Stephen Colbert, Jordan Peele, Steve Carrell, Tina Fey, Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Their comedy descends directly from the Works Progress Administration.
by Jon Schwarz via The Intercept on July 4, 2020
The cast of "Hamilton" on stage.

Why We’ll Never Stop Arguing About Hamilton

Hamilton is an impossibly slippery text. The arguments over the show are part of what make it great.
by Aja Romano via Vox on July 3, 2020
A grilled cheese sandwich.
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A Brief History of Comfort Food

Our newest culinary trend is also our oldest.
by Stacy Wood, April White via JSTOR Daily on May 30, 2020
Lou Gehrig holding a baseball bat

How Baseball Players Became Celebrities

Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth transformed America’s pastime by becoming a new kind of star.
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on May 21, 2020
Dr. Dre.

The Complicated Truths of Dr. Dre’s ‘The Chronic’

No rap album has quite the mythology attached to it—as a game changer, a king maker, a genre expander. But legends aren’t exactly fact.
by Justin Sayles via The Ringer on April 20, 2020
Graffito picture of Richard Nixon superimposed on lines an German text.

Richard Nixon, Modular Man

Even knowing every awful thing Richard Nixon would go on to do, you had to respect, as the phrase goes, his hustle.
by Phil Christman via The Hedgehog Review on April 6, 2020

The My Generation: An Oral History Of Myspace Music

Myspace changed the way we discovered music and fell apart after conquering the world.
by Michael Tedder via Stereogum on March 30, 2020
Stan and Mardi Timm show off Johnson Smith novelties they’ve collected. Stan wears X-Ray Spex and holds a Tark Electric Razor. Mardi wears a sailor’s hat that says “Kiss Me Honey I Won’t Bite” and holds a Little Gem Lung Tester and Bust Developer.

Fun Delivered: World’s Foremost Experts on Whoopee Cushions and Silly Putty Tell All

The Timms provide the history behind their collection of 20th century mail-order novelty items.
by Lisa Hix via Collectors Weekly on March 17, 2020
Drawing of earth encircled with celestial rings
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The Protestant Astrology of Early American Almanacs

The wildly popular books helped people understand farming and health through the movement of the planets, in a way compatible with Protestantism.
by T. J. Tomlin, Livia Gershon via JSTOR Daily on March 15, 2020
Jeanne Cagney as Vera Novak in "Quicksand"
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How Film Noir Tried to Scare Women out of Working

In the period immediately following World War II, the femme fatale embodied a host of male anxieties about gender roles.
by Michael Renov, Jack Boozer, Kristin Hunt via JSTOR Daily on March 12, 2020

An Oral History of the Members Only Jacket

On the fixture of white yuppiedom and icon of post-ironic millennial hipsterdom.
by Andrew Fiouzi via MEL on March 7, 2020
Choose your own adventure book covers with arrows pointing in opposite directions.

“Oh My God, It’s Milton Friedman for Kids”

How "Choose Your Own Adventure" books indoctrinated ‘80s children with the idea that success is simply the result of individual “good choices.”
by Eli Cook, Rebecca Onion via Slate on February 27, 2020

Why Artist Hank Willis Thomas Smashed Up 'The Dukes of Hazzard's' General Lee

Thomas crunches history and Hollywood tropes in his first solo show in L.A.
by Carolina A. Miranda via Los Angeles Times on January 29, 2020

‘Impeachment Polka’: How a Composer in 1868 Sought to Capitalize on America’s Political Obsession

A pianist performs a piece of music forgotten for 150 years.
by Philip Bump via Washington Post on January 16, 2020

The Decade Comic Book Nerds Became Our Cultural Overlords

Why do they have to be such sore winners?
by Alex Pappademas via Medium on December 10, 2019

‘Baby, It's Cold Outside' Was Controversial From the Beginning

Here’s what to know about consent in the 1940s, when the song was written.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on December 5, 2019

Fandom: A Star Wars Story

This is about much more than Star Wars—it is about media bias and "information disorder" in the twenty-first century.
by William Proctor via Contingent on December 4, 2019

Mikhail Gorbachev’s Pizza Hut Thanksgiving Miracle

In 1997, the former Soviet leader needed money, and Pizza Hut needed a spokesman. Greatness ensued.
by Paul Musgrave via Foreign Policy on November 28, 2019

The Hipster

It happens every year.
by Lauren Michele Jackson via Public Books on November 12, 2019

Pornotopia

In the mid-20th century, Playboy wasn't just an erotic magazine. It was an architectural movement as well.
by Paul B. Preciado via Public Books on October 11, 2019

The Commercial Rise of Country Music During the Great Depression

The Depression was the gravitational pull that created country stars and their nationwide universe of listeners.
by Christopher C. Gorham via We're History on October 7, 2019
Drawing of a man and his donkey from the book, Uncle Tom's Cabin, circa 1800s.

Americans Have Always Celebrated Hacks and Swindlers

In 19th-century New England, rule-breaking Yankees were a source of national pride.
by Hugh McIntosh via Zócalo Public Square on September 16, 2019

Mass Barbecue is the Invasive Species of Our Culinary Times

There's room for the haute and folk traditions but the market-driven style taking over is the most problematic.
by John Shelton Reed via The American Conservative on September 3, 2019
Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke) and Dorothy (Judy Garland) in "The Wizard of Oz."

"The Wizard of Oz" Invented the "Good Witch"

Eighty years ago, MGM’s sparkly pink rendering of Glinda expanded American pop culture’s definition of free-flying women.
by Pam Grossman via The Atlantic on August 25, 2019
Cathy Gillies, Kitty Lutesinger, Sandy Good, and Brenda McCann, of the Manson Family, kneel on the sidewalk outside the Los Angeles Hall of Justice on March 29, 1971.

The Manson Family Murders, and Their Complicated Legacy, Explained

The Manson Family murders weren’t a countercultural revolt. They were about power, entitlement, and Hollywood.
by Aja Romano via Vox on August 7, 2019

Nashville Contra Jaws, 1975

In their time, “Jaws” and “Nashville” were regarded as Watergate films, and both were in production as the Watergate disaster played its final act.
by J. Hoberman via Longreads on August 7, 2019
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Pulp Fiction Helped Define American Lesbianism

In the 50s and 60s, steamy novels about lesbian relationships, marketed to men, gave closeted women needed representation.
by Erin Blakemore, Yvonne Keller via JSTOR Daily on August 1, 2019
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