Word: 20th
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...just what is the nature of black American identity today? Historically, the defining characteristic has been any person born in America who is of African ancestry, however remote. This is the infamous one-drop rule, invented and imposed by white racists until the middle of the 20th century. As with so many other areas of ethno-racial relations, African Americans turned this racist doctrine to their own ends. What to racist whites was a stain of impurity became a badge of pride. More significantly, what for whites was a means of exclusion was transformed by blacks into a glorious principle...
...ratio, if it were inverted, might have made for an entertaining, perceptive, and focused presentation of the facts. Sadly, “American Bloomsbury” centers so much on shock factor that it completely breezes over necessary information (like a mention of the Bloomsbury Group—the 20th century British intellectual bohemians for whom this book is named). “American Bloomsbury” feels wedged between genres, stuck in limbo between educated reading and fluff. Cheever’s desire to make the Transcendentalists seem cool to a younger generation would have worked, except that...
...hold a tulip glass of Louis XIII and prepare myself for this rare tasting opportunity. "Don't merely take a first sip," Géré tells me. "Instead, try to crush that first drop on your teeth." So how does century-old cognac taste? Well, like the 20th century itself: complex. Even the occasional cognac drinker like me can immediately sense a unique palate with each sip. First I tasted the oak outright, followed by a very distinct apple and hint of vanilla. Moments later, a flowery aroma, then a spicy sweetness. Rémy Martin has gone even...
...arbiters of 20th century art, comics had plenty of handicaps. It was printed on disposable paper (hence not worth saving, owning or investing in). It was popular (the wrong people liked it), American (when high culture was a European near-monopoly) and, worst of all, funny...
...show was far from iddeal. The L.A. museums were a car-drive away, and everyone drives out there. Back here in Manhattan, Newark might as well be New Delhi. As Spiegelman wrote to the show's producers: "While swell for New Jersey residents, placing the first half of the 20th century's comic strip artists into the Newark Museum is, from the perspective of this provincial New Yorker, the equivalent of hiding them in a Federal Witness Protection program." The Jewish Museum also censored some of Crumb's more robust drawings, provoking Spiegelman to withdraw his art from the show...