The Grateful Dead Are That Good The legendary Grateful Dead show from Barton Hall on the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York on May 8, 1977, sometime in the late evening, night even—is really great. And I’m thrilled to have all four shows of that May 1977 run, loving Buffalo, New Haven, Ithaca/Cornell, and…
What Seattle’s New Left Wants: Education A Marxist Critique of Identity Politics …and my response: I commend our new left social justice educators for continuing the fight to end institutional racism and address social equity. But this activism leaves the job only half done. Calls for social justice ring hollow when they do not address…
A Marxist Critiques Identity Politics
During the summer of 1919, two expatriated dadas living in Zurich were bored. Hans Arp (1886-1966) and Tristan Tzara (1896-1963) spiced things up by fabricating a duel between them. They planted the story in Swiss newspapers and falsely reported that fellow dadas Francis Picabia, Oskar Kokoschka, and Walter Serner were at the duel as seconds,…
Dead Beatles The play of children and the play of ensemble improvisers like the Grateful Dead share numerous co-identifying qualities. Definitions of play and improvisation precede a comparison of the Dead and the Beatles. These two bands have been exhaustively described, but herein is a focus on the quality of play and the play ethos…