Great Are the Myths has sixty-six chapters. It also has a prologue, a section heading, a commencement, a coda, and an author’s note. But before any of that — before the first sentence, before Birdie’s voice begins — there is a title. And then another. And then sixty-four more. Read in sequence, the chapter titlesContinue reading “The Second Novel: On the Chapter Titles of Great Are the Myths”
Category Archives: Aesthetics
Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf: Titans of the Chicago Blues
In the story of the blues, few names resonate as profoundly as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Each stood as a colossus of the postwar Chicago sound, electrifying the traditions of the Mississippi Delta and shaping what would become the bedrock of modern rock and roll. Together, they embodied a paradox: rivals as much asContinue reading “Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf: Titans of the Chicago Blues”
The Companion Who Lives in Your Head: Imaginary Friends, Spirit Guides, and the Inner Life of the Boy
An Essay on Reading Great Are the Myths “What if you’re my imaginary friend?” The boy asks this near the very end. They are lying side by side on sun loungers in the California desert, covered in blankets, the way they used to lie in the garden in Memphis when they were thirteen and fourteenContinue reading “The Companion Who Lives in Your Head: Imaginary Friends, Spirit Guides, and the Inner Life of the Boy”
The Blues: A History Written in Twelve Bars
The blues is more than a musical form; it is a cultural inheritance, a body of expression born of sorrow and survival, migration and transformation. To speak of the blues is to trace the story of Black America itself: the displacement of slavery, the endurance of Reconstruction, the Great Migration, and the uneasy promise ofContinue reading “The Blues: A History Written in Twelve Bars”
Gene Tierney: The Allure and the Abyss
Gene Tierney had the kind of beauty that could silence a room. Tall, dark-haired, with cheekbones carved like marble and eyes the shade of a storm gathering over water, she seemed less like an actress than a vision conjured by a painter. Yet behind the immaculate surface of Hollywood’s most glamorous starlet of the 1940sContinue reading “Gene Tierney: The Allure and the Abyss”
Orson Welles: The Genius Who Reshaped Cinema
Orson Welles was only 25 when he altered the trajectory of modern filmmaking. His 1941 debut, Citizen Kane, arrived as a thunderclap—an audacious blend of narrative innovation, technical daring, and psychological depth. To understand Welles is to trace the restless genius of a man who straddled radio, theater, and film with equal authority, a prodigyContinue reading “Orson Welles: The Genius Who Reshaped Cinema”
The Two Alfreds: Eisenstaedt and Wertheimer
In the vast history of twentieth-century photography, two Alfreds stand out for the way they captured the essence of their time: Alfred Eisenstaedt, the German-born émigré whose elegant eye helped define Life magazine’s golden era, and Alfred Wertheimer, the Brooklyn-based photographer whose intimate portraits of a young Elvis Presley gave the world its first candidContinue reading “The Two Alfreds: Eisenstaedt and Wertheimer”
Five Films with Incredible Style V
Cinema has long been a mirror for fashion and design. The most stylish films don’t just tell stories—they set moods, inspire wardrobes, and capture eras in a single frame. In this fifth installment, we spotlight five more films where style defines the atmosphere as much as plot or dialogue. A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) –Continue reading “Five Films with Incredible Style V”
Jackie Onassis & Beyond -III
By the time Jacqueline Kennedy married Aristotle Onassis in 1968, she had already lived a lifetime of spectacle: debutante, First Lady, national widow. To some, her second marriage was betrayal — a retreat from Camelot into vulgar opulence. To others, it was pragmatic, even necessary: the most famous woman in the world seeking privacy andContinue reading “Jackie Onassis & Beyond -III”
Jackie the First Lady – II
When Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy stepped into the White House in January 1961, she was just 31 years old — the third youngest First Lady in American history. What followed during her thousand days as First Lady was not simply an exercise in style but a masterclass in image-making, cultural stewardship, and symbolic politics. To revisitContinue reading “Jackie the First Lady – II”
My World of Interiors 