Robert Rubsam
@robrubsam.bsky.social
Writing on books, movies, the arts: NYT Magazine, Baffler, Washington Post, Atlantic, Liberties, Commonweal, Mubi, Paris Review, Nation, etc. robjrub@gmail.com
"No less than for filmmakers, critics’ own approach to the texts of movies—whether literary, popular, scripted, or improvised—is a matter of freedom." www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
What Makes an Adaptation Good?
The kerfuffle over Christopher Nolan’s fidelity to Homer’s Odyssey reflects major questions in the history of cinema.
newyorker.com
First time in awhile I've been truly jealous of another writer www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
T.J. Clark · Night Visitors: Miniaturised Universe
The world exceeds us. It comes to us out of darkness. The cave is the universe, the nightly presence of that unknown...
lrb.co.uk
on Sophie Cunningham and a trans controversy that doesn't involve any actual trans people: defector.com/the-right-ha...
Wait, so this is a contemporary novel about a late 20-something who was a teenager in 2003? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/b...
Book Review: ‘Awake Awake,’ by Fiona Mozley
In Fiona Mozley’s novel “Awake Awake,” a London writer returns to her hometown to unearth hazy memories of past friendships and traumas.
nytimes.com
Nobody cares less about Moroccan and African life than the Moroccan autocracy, whose coordination of the migrant surge has resulted in 88 dead. Truly despicable www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
Ceuta leader accuses Morocco over ‘atrocity’ of mass border crossing
Juan Jesús Vivas says influx seen as ‘at least encouraged or permitted’ by Rabat, as Spain demands EU solidarity
theguardian.com
Reviewed an obscure movie based on a little-known poem: www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/181...
Apparent Magic
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
poetryfoundation.org
Reviewed an obscure movie based on a little-known poem: www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/181...
Apparent Magic
Poems, readings, poetry news and the entire 110-year archive of POETRY magazine.
poetryfoundation.org
Spider Man officially entering the NCIS zone ( “why don’t critics respect this bad popular thing?”)
We’re starving millions of Americans so musk and bezos can get tax cuts and trump can collect bribes www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
The Coming Food-Stamp Crisis
A looming deadline may force some states to end SNAP next year.
theatlantic.com
Another death in ICE custody: Prisciliano Trejo Ricano. He said this before he died:
INDY Week@indyweek.bsky.social · 6d agoPrisciliano Trejo Ricano began feeling ill while detained at a Georgia detention center, where he had been for three weeks. He reported that he had not received medical attention after experiencing severe symptoms. He died on Wednesday, July 22.
Revelations of Divine Love———wait a second!
Matt Gabriele@profgabriele.com · 5d agook let's do a discourse: what historical text absolutely needs the big budget film treatment, AND will create the need for a review by a scholar in a prestige publication? for medieval Europe, either: -- Song of Roland -- Book of Margery Kempe
"Charlie Baker, president of the NCAA, the main organization that regulates and organizes college sports in the United States, said in an interview that fewer than 10 transgender athletes were competing under his governing body, which encompasses more than half a million people."
jj skolnik@supremenothing.myatproto.social · 6d agohere, i’m citing my sources. the largest meta-analytic study came out this year
By hiring Richard Hanania the Times would bravely expose liberal Americans to a perspective they rarely if ever encounter (gullible, illiterate white supremacist)
NBCC member Robert Rubsam reviewed Amitav Ghosh's "Ghost-Eye" for The Atlantic: buff.ly/wRvNhhE
The Crisis That Novelists Can’t Handle
Amitav Ghosh believes that climate change requires rethinking the novel. His new work of fiction fails that standard.
buff.ly
The oddest thing about the response to this essay is people who say it’s “personal”. You can disagree about some or all of it! I may well be wrong! But it’s not “personal” to analyze a film or other work of art, even negatively. Criticism is more than “Hurray!” or “Hiss!”
The only superhero movies should be Spiderman movies because Spiderman is the only never-fascist superhero
Yes, but the opposing argument, that the past was just like the present in different clothing, is even more misleading and false. People in and within different times and places have always had vastly different heuristics for making sense of the world. Insisting otherwise is just lazy.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · last wk.one tendency that comes out about period films is the insistence that XYZ moral thought would not have occurred to anyone in the ancient world. to be sure there are moral innovations and changes but the existence of thorough dissatisfaction with the present moral order is not a modern phenomenon
Just remembered that 'novel' whose entire premise seemed to be "maybe Bob Dylan is my dad"
A classics professor is clearly not qualified to evaluate a movie. To correctly appreciate the medium of film, you need a degree in English literature
“Algorithmic mediation of the past means that the greatest weight will be given to what privileged institutions have already been able to preserve in the greatest numbers.”
Sonja Drimmer@sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · last wk.“AI has become a blunt instrument in the enterprise to impose precisely this form of sanctioned ignorance about America’s past...Taken together, [Trump’s & Musk’s] plans amount to a one-two punch, history in the hands of the corporate state.” My latest on AI & history: www.salon.com/2026/07/28/t...
The beguiling voice of Laurie Anderson takes center stage in “You and Your Dog,” the final single from The New World (which will be released in full this Friday). It’s one of our favorite songs we’ve ever made. Full video here: youtu.be/fbyEuLBeKRg?...
"Tonk" is a Border Patrol slur that refers to the sound a metal flashlight makes when used to beat a migrant in the head. And that's the word that Border Patrol agents under the direct command of Greg Bovino were using when bragging about their arrests in Los Angeles last year.
Los Angeles Times@latimes.com · last wk.Immigration agents used racial slurs referring to Latinos in text messages, video obtained by ACLU
[guy who reportedly makes seven figures arguing for centrist positions]:
Never forget that rule by Fujimori led to the forced terilization of thousands of Indigenous women in Peru, and now his daughter will be taking over the country. www.france24.com/es/video/202...
María Ysabel Cedano: 'Procesos de las víctimas de esterilizaciones forzadas en Perú continuarán'
Además de la condena por los casos de las matanzas de Barrios Altos y La Cantuta, el expresidente peruano Alberto Fujimori estuvo involucrado en otros procesos judiciales relacionados con violaciones…
france24.com