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Tarot, Tech, and Our Age of Magical Thinking Aug 29, 2024

Show notes

Until recently, tarot, astrology, and spiritualism—practices often shorthanded simply as woo-woo—were the stuff of dusty psychic parlors and seventies nostalgia. But today, mysticism has permeated mainstream culture. In the third and final installment of the Critics at Large interview series, Vinson Cunningham talks with Jennifer Wilson, a contributing writer at The New Yorker, about this new age of magical thinking. They discuss how “woo” has seeped into our everyday lives through apps such as Co-Star, and how recent TV shows and novels have embraced supernatural themes. With the rise of cryptocurrency and sports betting, speculation about the future has become a fundamental part of our economy, too. “Maybe people would feel less uncertainty that pushes them to consult with astrology and tarot-card readers if there were more security in the present,” Wilson says. “In so many ways, this is a problem we’ve created.” And a bonus: Vinson gets a tarot reading of his own.
Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Curse” (2023)
@astropoets
“True Detective” (2014-)
“This Is Me . . . Now: A Love Story” (2024)
“The White Lotus” (2021-)
“Long Island Compromise,” by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
“ ‘The Curse’ and the Magical Thinking of the Speculative Economy,” by Jennifer Wilson
“Look Into My Eyes” (2024)
“Speculative Communities: Living with Uncertainty in a Financialized World,” by Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Irresistible Myth of Las Vegas Aug 22, 2024

Show notes

Cities have always been romanticized, but few of them have embraced—or actively engineered—their reputations as thoroughly as Las Vegas. On the second in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes, Alexandra Schwartz talks with her fellow staff writer Nick Paumgarten about how the desert town first branded itself as an entertainment capital, and how that image has been reified in pop culture ever since. The two consider seminal Vegas texts, from Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 novel, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” to the bro comedy “The Hangover,” and Paumgarten reflects on his recent pilgrimage to see Dead & Company, the latest iteration of the Grateful Dead, during the band’s residency at the Sphere. In theory, a Vegas residency should be a career high—but the expectations around them can also leave an artist trapped in amber. It’s a danger that applies to places as much as people. “How do you reinvent yourself when you’ve achieved this cultural-icon status?” Schwartz asks. “In some ways, I wonder if that’s also a question for the city itself.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Reckoning with the Dead at the Sphere,” by Nick Paumgarten (The New Yorker)
“Swingers” (1996)
“Double or Quits,” by Dave Hickey (Frieze)
“Learning from Las Vegas,” by Robert Venturi, Steven Izenour, and Denise Scott Brown
“Viva Las Vegas” (1964)
“Leaving Las Vegas” (1995)
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” by Hunter S. Thompson
“The Hangover” (2009)
“Viva Las Vegas: Elvis Returns to the Stage,” by Ellen Willis (The New Yorker)
“Elvis” (2022)
“Hacks” (2021—)
“Sex and the City” (1998-2004)
“Friends” (1994-2004)
“Seinfeld” (1989-1998)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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Charli XCX, Chappell Roan, and the Unstable Hierarchy of Pop Aug 15, 2024

Show notes

“ ‘BRAT’ summer”—so named for the Charli XCX album that’s become the soundtrack of Kamala Harris’s Presidential run—has given pop fans much to discuss, from Charli’s own flirtation with mainstream stardom to the meteoric rise of Chappell Roan. On the first in a series of Critics at Large interview episodes, Naomi Fry talks with her fellow staff writer Kelefa Sanneh about the state of the music landscape. The two consider the breakout successes of the moment—including “Espresso,” the Sabrina Carpenter song that launched a thousand memes—and the catastrophic failures, namely Katy Perry’s new single, “Woman’s World.” These highs and lows speak to the nature of the genre, in which artists can be cast aside as quickly as they were embraced. “Pop music, in particular, tends to be quite cutthroat,” Sanneh says. “If it’s not working, it’s flopping. And when it’s time for people to jump off the bandwagon, people jump off.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“BRAT,” by Charli XCX
“Woman’s World,” by Katy Perry
“ ‘Woman’s World’ Track Review,” by Shaad D’Souza (Pitchfork)
“Mean girls,” by Charli XCX
“Good Luck, Babe!,” by Chappell Roan
“I Kissed a Girl,” by Katy Perry
“SOUR,” by Olivia Rodrigo
“emails i can’t send,” by Sabrina Carpenter
“Espresso,” by Sabrina Carpenter
“Please Please Please,” by Sabrina Carpenter
“Not Like Us,” by Kendrick Lamar
“The Night We Met,” by Lord Huron

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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Why We Want What Tom Ripley Has Aug 08, 2024

Show notes

In her 1955 novel, “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” Patricia Highsmith introduced readers to the figure of Tom Ripley, an antihero who covets the good life, and achieves it—by stealing it from someone else. On this episode of Critics at Large, the staff writers Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the long tail of Highsmith’s work, which has been revived in adaptations like René Clément’s 1960 classic, “Purple Noon”; the definitive 1999 film starring Matt Damon and Jude Law; and this year’s Netflix series, “Ripley,” which casts its protagonist as a lonely middle-aged con man. In all three versions, Dickie Greenleaf, a wealthy acquaintance of Ripley’s, becomes his obsession and eventually his victim. The story resonates today in part because we’re all in the habit of observing—and coveting—the life styles of the rich and famous. Social media gives users endless opportunities to study how others live, such as the places they go, the meals they consume, and the objects they possess. “One of the reasons that the character of Ripley is forever sympathetic is the yearning and striving to be something other than himself, following an example that’s set out to him,” Fry says. “For him, it’s someone like Dickie. For us, it might be someone online.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“The Talented Mr. Ripley,” by Patricia Highsmith

“The Talented Mr. Ripley” (1999)

“Purple Noon” (1960)

“Ripley” (2024)

“Saltburn” (2023)

“The White Lotus” (2021—)

This episode originally aired on April 4, 2024. New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Kamala Harris Vibe Shift Aug 01, 2024

Show notes

The announcement of Kamala Harris’s Presidential run has set off one of the most pronounced vibe shifts in recent memory. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz make sense of the torrent of memes; the “unholy, immediate alliance” between the Harris campaign and the British pop artist Charli XCX’s album “BRAT”; and the endless comparisons to Armando Iannucci’s political satire “Veep.” This chaotic but mostly cheerful embrace of Harris’s candidacy stands in contrast to the national mood even a few days prior, when a pervasive sense of doom was dominant. How might we reconcile this moment of boosterism with the very real, long-term reasons for despair? “It’s really no use being a fan, because you tie yourself to something you have no control over,” Cunningham says. “Recenter your ideas of the future in things that you can feel and touch. I think that that is the imaginative problem of our time, especially when it comes to doom or not doom.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Dirty Dancing” (1987)
“BRAT,” by Charli XCX
“Veep” (2012-19)
“I Created ‘Veep.’ The Real-Life Version Isn’t So Funny,” by Armando Iannucci (The New York Times)
“Should We Go Extinct?: A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times,” by Todd May
“The Case for Being Unburdened by What Has Been,” by Rebecca Traister (New York Magazine)
“Are We Doomed? Here’s How to Think About It,” by Rivka Galchen (The New Yorker)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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From Vanity Fair’s “Dynasty”: Can Harry and Meghan’s Hollywood Dream Last? Jul 25, 2024

Show notes

Critics at Large is off this week. In the meantime, enjoy a recent episode from Vanity Fair’s “Dynasty,” hosted by the executive editor Claire Howorth, along with the correspondents Katie Nicholl and Erin Vanderhoof. It’s been four years since Meghan Markle and Prince Harry walked away from their royal roles, sparking an endless stream of media attention and second-guessing from tabloids in the U.K. In the time since, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have been carving out a semi-royal path in the court of Montecito, California. They’ve struck big-ticket Hollywood deals worth millions of dollars. Is their newfound celebrity status sustainable?

To discover more from “Dynasty” and other Vanity Fair podcasts, visit vanityfair.com/podcasts.

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Alice Munro’s Fall from Grace Jul 18, 2024

Show notes

In an essay published earlier this month, Andrea Skinner, the daughter of the lauded writer Alice Munro, detailed the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of Munro’s second husband, Gerald Fremlin. The piece goes on to describe how, even after Skinner told her of the abuse, years later, Munro chose to stay with him until his death, in 2013. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the revelations, which have raised familiar questions about what to do when beloved artists are found to have done unforgivable things. They’re joined by fellow staff writer Jiayang Fan, an avid reader of Munro’s work who’s been grappling with the news in real time. Together they revisit the 1993 story “Vandals,” which contains unsettling parallels to the scenario that played out in the Munro home. Have the years since the #MeToo movement given us more nuanced ways of addressing these flare-ups than full-out cancellation? “It’s not a moral loosening that I’m sensing,” Schwartz says. “It’s more of a sense of, Maybe I don’t want to throw out the work altogether—but I do need to wrestle.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“My Stepfather Sexually Abused Me When I Was a Child. My Mother, Alice Munro, Chose to Stay with Him,” by Andrea Skinner (The Toronto Star)

“Vandals,” by Alice Munro (The New Yorker)

“How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda,” by Jiayang Fan (The New Yorker)

“The Love Album: Off the Grid,” by Diddy

“Ignition (Remix),” by R. Kelly

“Monsters: A Fan’s Dilemma,” by Claire Dederer

“Manhattan” (1979)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Changing World of Nature Documentaries Jul 11, 2024

Show notes

In 1954, a young David Attenborough made his début as the star of a new nature show called “Zoo Quest.” The docuseries, which ran for nearly a decade on the BBC, was a sensation that set Attenborough down the path of his life’s work: exposing viewers to our planet’s most miraculous creatures and landscapes from the comfort of their living rooms. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz trace Attenborough’s filmography from “Zoo Quest” to his newest program, “Mammals,” a six-part series on BBC America narrated by the now- ninety-eight-year-old presenter. In the seventy years since “Zoo Quest” first aired, the genre it helped create has had to reckon with the effects of the climate crisis—and to figure out how to address such hot-button issues onscreen. By highlighting conservation efforts that have been successful, the best of these programs affirm our continued agency in the planet’s future. “One thing I got from ‘Mammals’ was not pure doom,” Schwartz says. “There are some options here. We have choices to make.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Mammals” (2024)
“Zoo Quest” (1954-63)
“Are We Changing Planet Earth?” (2006)
“The Snow Leopard,” by Peter Matthiessen
“My Octopus Teacher” (2020)
“Life on Our Planet” (2023)
“I Like to Get High at Night and Think About Whales,” by Samantha Irby
New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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From The New Yorker Radio Hour: Emily Nussbaum on the Beginnings of Reality TV Jul 04, 2024

Show notes

Reality television has generally got a bad rap, but Emily Nussbaum—who received a Pulitzer Prize, in 2016, for her work as The New Yorker’s TV critic—sees that the genre has its own history and craft. Nussbaum’s new book “Cue the Sun!” is a history of reality TV, and roughly half the book covers the era before “Survivor,” which is often considered the starting point of the genre. She picks three formative examples from the Before Time to discuss with David Remnick: “Candid Camera,” “An American Family,” and “Cops.” She’s not trying to get you to like reality TV, but rather, she says, “I'm trying to get you to understand it.”

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Summer Obsessions Jun 27, 2024

Show notes

There’s arguably no better time for falling down a cultural rabbit hole than the languid, transitory summer months. On this episode of Critics at Large, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss how the season allows us to foster a particular relationship with a work of art—whether it’s the soundtrack to a summer fling or a book that helps make sense of a new locale. Listeners divulge the texts that have consumed them over the years, and the hosts share their own formative obsessions, recalling how Brandy’s 1998 album, “Never Say Never,” defined a first experience at camp, and how a love of Jim Morrison’s music resulted in a teen-age pilgrimage to see his grave in Paris. But how do we square our past obsessions with our tastes and identities today? “Whatever we quote, whatever we make reference to, on so many levels is who we are,” Cunningham says. “It seems, to me, so precious.”

Read, watch, and listen with the critics:

“Heathers” (1988)
“Pump Up the Volume” (1990)
The poetry of Sergei Yesenin
The poetry of Alexander Pushkin
GoldenEye 007 (1997)
“Elvis” (2022)
“Jailhouse Rock” (1957)
“Pride & Prejudice” (2005)
The Neapolitan Novels, by Elena Ferrante
“Ramble On,” by Led Zeppelin
“Never Say Never,” by Brandy
“The Boy Is Mine,” by Brandy and Monica
“The End,” by The Doors
“The Last Waltz” (1978)
“The Witches of Eastwick,” by John Updike
“Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand
“Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003)
“Postcards from the Edge” (1990)
“Rent” (1996)

New episodes drop every Thursday. Follow Critics at Large wherever you get your podcasts.

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