The Rapaissance: has hip-hop finally become an enlightened art form?
I often hear the same grudges against hip hop repeated by “intellectual types” over and over again: that the genre is ignorant, it requires minimal talent to succeed in, and […]
A Knight, Errant
I love myself a good protest. Even if I don’t agree with the demonstrators’ point of view, the courage it takes to speak out against the norm is always inspiring. […]
Breaking ground: Gilligan does it again with Better Call Saul
It’s not what you think: Vince Gilligan’s spinoff of his game-changing series Breaking Bad is only a spinoff in the technical sense. It doesn’t rely on the story of Walter […]
Now I’m a believer: Why Shrek, against all the odds, made this curmudgeon appreciate musicals
I’m not a big fan of musicals. The contrived plots, the hammy overacting, the simplification of events and emotions all rub me the wrong way. It’s a uniquely American art […]
Lessons I learned from The Daily Show
Here’s the lesson Jon Stewart has taught me about the world: just because you can laugh at something doesn’t mean you don’t care about it; quite the opposite, in fact. […]
My new iPhone wants to consume my soul
This Christmas, I finally got an iPhone. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. I guess we have sort of a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, I […]
A Knight, Errant: So, Option ii…we meet again
This is a response to an article about the recent Option ii changes. I told them I’d retired. I told them I wouldn’t do it again. I got out of […]
The moral depravity of the gluten-free diet
Whenever I eat out, I find it necessary to add the disclaimer that I can’t eat gluten and that my food should be kept separate from anything that contains it, […]
A Knight, Errant: Our responsiblity, as the people who can still breathe
In high schools across the country, students are raising both hands in protest of the Ferguson and Garner decisions. Why aren’t we? Because we aren’t really in any danger? Because while we are a diverse school, the number of African American students is comparatively low? Because in the privileged suburbs of West Windsor and the calm villages of Plainsboro, the […]
North’s stage crew: The kids behind the curtain
They can be hard to notice: clad in all-black and flitting back and forth across the stage between scenes, flickering like cue marks in an old film. In the months […]
Birdman: A quest for true fulfillment
The most memorable scene from Alejandro G. Inarritu’s latest film, Birdman, captures Ed Norton—the star of the David Fincher classic Fight Club and possibly the funniest, truest fighter ever to […]
A knight, errant
Achievement: that singular attainment of glory, the validation of talent and diligence, the subject of our peers’ coveted admiration. But what qualifies as achievement? Does it need to have a […]
The birth of charity narcissism: a refreshing glass of philanthropy, on the rocks
This summer, teenagers and celebrities around the world dropped more frozen water than the polar ice caps in a remarkable viral sensation known as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, designed […]
The Knightly News 