Cleveland Rocks, Even in the Dead of Winter

The City’s Unpretentious Music Scene Thrives Year Round, Under Bridges, on Porches, and Outside of the Country’s Most Famous Music Hall

In the middle of February, when the temperatures dip below freezing, Clevelanders are frequently found huddled together for warmth in one place: outside—yes, outside—under the crisp night sky, watching local bands.

Tens of thousands of people flock to Brite Winter, an annual festival featuring six stages of music, DJs, artists, ice carving, and food trucks. The event takes place outside—snow, sleet, or sunshine—in a different Cleveland neighborhood each year, often near some signature piece of Cleveland’s infrastructure. In 2016, Brite Winter popped up underneath the city’s majestic steel bridges on the …

America’s First ‘Indian’ TV Star Was a Black Man from Missouri

Stymied by Hollywood Racism, Korla Pandit Reinvented Himself as a Mystical Brahmin Pianist

Turning on the TV in Los Angeles in 1949, you might have come face-to-face with a young man in a jeweled turban with a dreamy gaze accentuated by dark eye …

Why American Satire Doesn’t Need Jon Stewart

The Daily Show Host Made an Old Tradition New Again—Which Is Why We’ll Do Just Fine without Him

Like the legions of other admirers of Jon Stewart, I’m eager to hear who will
succeed him at The Daily Show. In my research on political satire around the world, …

When Will Hollywood Figure Out That Diversity Sells?

The Most Successful Movies and TV Shows Reflect America’s Demographics, But Executives, Writers, and Directors Are Still Catching On

Just a few days after an Academy Awards ceremony that host Neil Patrick Harris joked honored “Hollywood’s best and whitest,” entertainment insiders at a “Thinking L.A.” event co-presented by Zócalo, …

Hollywood UFD statues

Why Can’t Hollywood Tell America’s Stories?

Our Onscreen Heroes Are White Men. But Most of Us Aren’t.

The 2015 Oscars broadcast will reflect the demographics of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters—who are overwhelmingly older Anglo men—but it won’t reflect the demographics of the …

Joaquin Phoenix, Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson

Has California’s Greatest Filmmaker Lost His Focus?

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and Boogie Nights Were Golden State Masterpieces, But Inherent Vice Is Just Incoherent

Has Hollywood’s foremost interpreter of California lost his touch?

That may seem a strange question to ask now that said interpreter—the writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson—is up for a screenwriting Oscar at …