Laura Marsh

Well it’s not long sentence, but I did get to write this essay for @newrepublic.com! I strongly encourage you to join us.

newrepublic.com/article/2015...

The New Deal Masterpieces Threatened by Trump’s D.C. Downsizing Your great-grandparents paid Ben Shahn and Philip Guston to create gorgeous public murals. Next year they could be rubble.

Nobody else is writing about this, so please re-post my two-part series about the imminent sale of what one expert calls “the Sistine Chapel of New Deal art.” Preservationists need to move fast.

Part one:

newrepublic.com/article/2010...

Part two:

newrepublic.com/article/2010...

Fit for Purpose? How Today’s Commercial Digital Platforms Subvert Key Goals of Public Education Digital educational platforms have become ubiquitous in American classrooms, with tools like Google Workspace for Education, Kahoot!, Zearn, Khan Academy, and many others now structuring curriculum, i...

Say it often, say it loud:

"Overall, research has not supported the common-sense presumption that digital approaches to schooling are better than non-digital alternatives. At the broadest level, widespread computer use in education has been found to be associated with lower student achievement."

I was in the midst of writing a nice, fluffy rave about s2 of PLATONIC for my Sept column when I decided I really wanted to write this instead — so, thanks to @lauramarsh.bsky.social for enabling a last-minute pivot.

Quick thread of the great journos and critics upon which this essay is built 1/x

Is Agnes Callard Making You Uncomfortable? In the philosopher’s world, provocation and controversy are inseparable from the examined life.

Kipnis on Agnes Callard:
newrepublic.com/article/1907...

Are Cell Phones Really Destroying Kids’ Mental Health? Jonathan Haidt once heralded an “ultrasocial” world. Now he’s one of social media’s most prominent critics.

I wrote about all the ways Jonathan Haidt gets it wrong and how early Haidt would not have been happy with later Haidt.

newrepublic.com/article/1903...

The Inimitable Weirdness of David Lynch The filmmaker, who died this week, mixed the menacing with the everyday, the banal with the surreal and sublime.

remembering David Lynch, for @newrepublic.com. newrepublic.com/article/1903...

“3 Body Problem”’s Failure of Imagination The new Netflix show faithfully adapts Liu Cixin’s bestselling novels but lacks imagination.

I feel really lucky that I have an editor (hi @lauramarsh.bsky.social) who has supported me writing a handful of essays about TV form this year. I'm proud of this one about 3 BODY PROBLEM and the sorry state of visual style on streaming television. newrepublic.com/article/1781...

my guess would be An American Sickness by Elisabeth Rosenthal (fwiw one of the most illuminating books I have read on health care...)

This is a small show, but it’s filled with big moments like these. This scene in particular is a mirror image of Sam’s first performance at Choir Practice, when Joel first held her up (“I’ll sing the Kate Bush part”). The hesitance, the rising confidence, the power of a friend’s presence. Few shows have defiantly tried to make such glorious, visionary television from such common tools. What would it be like if people loved you? How would that feel? What is it like to not be alone anymore? Somebody, sing us that song.

SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE, one of the best shows on TV, ended last night with one last big number. This is what I wrote about it a few weeks ago. They left it all on the floor. newrepublic.com/article/1875...

thank you for coming!

Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: “I Loved Him. He Was My Safety.” When he was 42, Cormac McCarthy fell in love with a 16-year-old girl he met by a motel pool. Augusta Britt would go on to become one of the most significant—and secret—inspirations in literary history...

why is this written like this lol www.vanityfair.com/style/story/...

Ta-Nehisi Coates Corrects the Record A trip to Israel and Palestine in 2023 made Coates rethink one of his most famous essays.

My review of Ta-Nehisi’s latest is finally up! Lots of context here you won’t get elsewhere.

newrepublic.com/article/1861...

Thank you!

Oh trust me I am on the case, thank you!

omg how have I not read this book??

thank you!

I can't wait til more people have read it and are ready to talk!

up with the novel of ideas!

Rachel Kushner’s Spy Games In “Creation Lake,” a brilliant secret agent delights in her infiltration of a niche world of ideas.

Rachel Kushner wrote a perfect spy novel ft my favorite subject: Neaderthals

newrepublic.com/article/1852...

Alien: Romulus Tried Too Hard To Be an Alien Movie The latest installment lacks the imaginative strangeness of the earlier films.

I reviewed Alien: Romulus. I think it gets too caught up in fidelity to the franchise.

newrepublic.com/article/1850...

My TNR essay about the Fall of the House of Usher is also kind of about the Fall of the House of Streaming in ways that might be interesting to folks with no interest in this show. FYI! newrepublic.com/article/1759...

which goes after a comma, that doesn't!

This ruling seems good https://newrepublic.com/article/172830/warhol-goldsmith-supreme-court-ai

Gonna start calling ChatGPT's hyper-authoritative way of writing completely false information the Turing-Kruger effect

I thought this episode of Odd Lots was really good in general but esp Joe Weisenthal's comments on how psychically damaging it was to write at volume earlier in his career https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFynAvblrEQ

For a certain kind of leadership, stretching employees beyond breaking point is the only way they know how to get traffic

I would not be surprised if the pressure to publish at insane volume persists long after the social infrastructure that rewarded it is gone https://www.niemanlab.org/2023/05/no-need-to-shoot-the-messenger-its-muddled-ideas-are-doing-the-job/

Only naomi fry can sort it out