by Matthew Friedman | Feb 26, 2026 | Commentary, Politics
Nuance does not seem possible on the left right now, especially with regard to our political heroes. This has been apparent in the gatekeeping around the memory of Jesse Jackson, and the revelations of Noam Chomsky’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. In either case,...
by Matthew Friedman | Feb 25, 2026 | Music
In 1937 John Cage enunciated his credo on the future of music. “Wherever we are, what we hear is mostly noise,” he wrote. “When we ignore it, it disturbs us. When we listen to it, we find it fascinating. The sound of a truck at 50 m.p.h. Static...
by Matthew Friedman | Feb 20, 2026 | Music
I came to avant-garde art music fairly early (and fairly easily), through the soundtrack album for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and my friendship with Robert Kermode. Robert had similarly obscure interests, and we played a game of trying to find the most...
by Matthew Friedman | Jan 8, 2026 | Commentary, Politics
There was a time when any one of these things would have sparked a national crisis: The illegal and unconstitutional attack on a sovereign nation and the abduction of its leader; the persecution of a celebrated war hero, astronaut and elected official solely because...
by Matthew Friedman | Dec 28, 2025 | Essays, Music
Outrage flooded into the aisles of the Théâtre des Champs Elysées on the night of 29 May 1913, and spilled into the streets of Paris’s 8e Arrondissement. The premiere of Le Sacre du Printemps, a new ballet staged by Sergei Diaghilev’s Les Ballets Russes,...
