Prøve GULL - Gratis

Understanding Ellison

Reason magazine

|

April 2020

In a new collection of letters, the great Invisible Man author is further revealed.

- RICHARD KOSTELANETZ

Understanding Ellison

I FIRST MET THE American novelist Ralph Ellison in the summer of 1963, when he gave a reading to a small audience at Columbia University. Beside me was the critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, who introduced me to the author. Since I then lived at the southern end of Harlem (as it bordered on Columbia) and Ellison lived in a northwest enclave on Riverside Drive, he invited me to his home.

Few writers visited that apartment—it was off their map, even though it was only a few miles north of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the favored cultural turf for Ellison’s literary generation. Overlooking the lordly Hudson, it was filled with art, the latest technologies, and musical instruments, some of which he played for me. On one visit I recall him fingering part of a Brandenburg Concerto on his recorder.

In 1965, when the BBC asked me to do film portraits of New York writers, Ellison was my first choice. A little later, when contracted to do a book of extended profiles of major American artists and intellectuals, it seemed appropriate to feature him alongside John Cage, Reinhold Niebuhr, Robert Rauschenberg, Marshall McLuhan, Glenn Gould, and Herman Kahn.

I particularly admired Ellison’s

FLERE HISTORIER FRA Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Does AI Know How You Will Die?

HOW HIGH IS your risk of developing pancreatic cancer or suffering a heart attack in the next 20 years? A new generative artificial intelligence system called Delphi-2M aims to answer that question and offer personalized forecasts of your long-term health trajectory.

time to read

1 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

SOUTH PARK

The animated TV comedy South Park continues to do the impossible: stay punchy and relevant after decades on the air. The latest five-episode season, streaming on Paramount+, once again follows the fourth-graders of South Park Elementary as they navigate a world increasingly obsessed with technology and everything political.

time to read

1 min

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

WILL MAMDANI DEFUND THE POLICE?

THE NEW MAYOR IS KEEPING POLICE COMMISSIONER JESSICA TISCH ON THE JOB, BUT THEY MIGHT HAVE A CONTENTIOUS RELATIONSHIP.

time to read

3 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

MAMDANI'S EDUCATION AGENDA FOR LESS LEARNING

NEW YORK SCHOOLS NEED MORE CHOICE AND BETTER CURRICULA, BUT THE CITY'S NEW MAYOR WANTS TO TAKE CHOICES AWAY.

time to read

8 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

THE TWO FACES OF ZOHRAN MAMDANI

MAMDANI ACTUALLY WANTS MORE HOUSING TO BE BUILT.

time to read

3 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

The Long Road Home

The Wounded Generation examines the aftermath of the “good war.”

time to read

5 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

How the FCC Became the Speech Police

THE CONSTITUTIONALLY ANOMALOUS STATUS OF BROADCASTING INVITES GOVERNMENT MEDDLING.

time to read

21 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

MAMDANI CAN'T RAISE YOUR KIDS

THE MORE THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENES IN THE MARKET, THE MORE NEW YORK PARENTS PAY FOR CHILD CARE.

time to read

10 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

Reason magazine

Ayn Rand, the Video Game

\"WHAT DOES COMPLETELY, COMPLETELY UNREGULATED COMMERCE LOOK LIKE?\" KEN LEVINE'S BIOSHOCK WILL TELL YOU.

time to read

14 mins

February/March 2026

Reason magazine

DEATH BY LIGHTNING

Mike Makowsky opens Death by Lightning, a four-part miniseries he wrote and produced, with a chilling line: “This is a true story about two men the world forgot. One was the 20th president of the United States. The other shot him.” Yet this drama about President James Garfield and assassin Charles Guiteau reminds us that we should wish for more forgettable presidents.

time to read

1 min

February/March 2026

Translate

Share

-
+

Change font size