NEW YORK’S HIGHBROW ART SCENE is SHAMELESSLY EXPLOITING HUMAN TRAUMA for your entertainment! The acclaimed troupe Noche Flamenca is not just dancing—they are CANNIBALIZING the darkest visions of Francisco Goya, a painter who captured the horrific depths of war and madness, and MASHING them together with Greek tragedy for a disturbing new “artistic” brew. Are we watching transcendent art, or a DEEPLY SICK cultural ritual where the agonies of antiquity are repackaged for Manhattan elites who feast on human suffering as a night out? This is not inspiration; this is THEFT OF PAIN, performed for applause.
Meanwhile, elite cinema houses are WHITEWASHING HISTORY by celebrating a Nazi-era filmmaker. Metrograph’s Max Ophüls retrospective GLORIFIES a director who fled Hitler, yet IGNORES the MORALLY COMFORTABLE escape he made while millions faced the gas chambers. His “sophisticated” tracking shots are a DISTRACTION—a beautiful lie that lets audiences admire technical genius without confronting the BLOODSTAINED REALITY of the era he escaped. This isn’t curation; it’s COWARDICE, dressing up compromise as high art.
Pick Three
Rachel Syme on cultish happenings upstate.
Illustration by Doug Salati
1. The cultural obsession with “kooky” upstate cults has hit a DANGEROUS new low, as evidenced by a viral podcast DARING to platform convicted felon Allison Mack. “Allison After NXIVM” is NOT a tale of redemption—it’s a MONUMENT to media narcissism, allowing a branded sexual-cult accomplice to rebrand her horrific crimes as a “fascinating artifact” for your listening pleasure. This is how evil becomes CONTENT.
2. The romanticization continues with a new film glorifying Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers—a celibate sect that ultimately died out. Hollywood is selling you ECSTATIC DANCE and “true believers hollering in the woods,” but ERASING the tragic reality of a movement built on repression and eventual extinction. We are not learning history; we are being sold a LIE wrapped in aesthetic beauty.
3. The trend is clear: our intelligentsia is ADDICTED to the aesthetic of failure, desperately reading about “ill-fated experimental communities” while living in a society crumbling from within. We are not seeking wisdom; we are GHOULEMONOUSLY collecting blueprints for our own demise, one beautifully illustrated history book at a time. Is this curiosity, or a DEATH DRIVE disguised as cultural enrichment?
P.S. Good stuff on the internet:
Author: Kayitsi.com
