I spent my first two summers in New York resisting the urge to buy an air conditioning unit, and walking around my apartment holding a small fan inches from my face. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I made that choice, though it was probably some combination of being young,...

The story goes that when The Beatles landed stateside in 1964, they killed surf music. But one lone surf act escaped Americans’ selective amnesia of what they had been spinning just months before: They were called The Beach Boys, and if you ask most anyone today, chances are they’ll equate...

The 90s are here in more ways than one this summer — from boy bands (Hanson, Backstreet Boys), rap (Wu-Tang Clan) and Brit trip hop (Tricky) to alt rock (Alice in Chains), emo (Jimmy Eat World) and R&B (Ashanti), artists who defined our summers 20 years ago are still at...

About halfway through Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the narrator becomes so omniscient he enters the mind of a dog, as her master orders her down the wrong hunting path. "'Well, if that's what he wants, I'll do it, but I can't answer for myself...

About halfway through Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, the narrator becomes so omniscient he enters the mind of a dog, as her master orders her down the wrong hunting path. "'Well, if that's what he wants, I'll do it, but I can't answer for myself...

EDWARD ALBEE, 84, inches his way through his apartment by cane, settling into one of many leather chairs that fill the Tribeca loft with its overwhelming scent. Talk to him, and he will run circles around you. Prickly and quarrelsome, you’d think...

Blasphemy: New and Selected Stories
By Sherman Alexie
Grove Press
480 pages

Don't go calling Sherman Alexie's stories universal. "When people say universal they mean white people get it," he argues. His assessment is even more damning when you consider his subject matter --...

Of everything discussed in an 80-minute interview at Ai Weiwei’s studio on the outskirts of Beijing—including his 81-day detention in April last year, the government’s iron hold on his passport and the tax case that would never end–nothing roused the dissident artist so much...

It's appropriate that a documentary on Ai Weiwei should open the day the Olympics begin. The artist's troubles can be traced back to the Games four years ago, when Ai rose to international prominence for his work on the Bird's Nest stadium, and then to more dangerous heights when he...

"Sorry, I'll sneak in," a man murmured as he sidled past attendees at the Lincoln Center Festival premiere of "Uncle Vanya" Saturday night.

The man was Andrew Upton, his adaptation of Chekhov's seminal work in motion just eight rows ahead of him. From his unassuming air, you'd never guess...

While Katie Holmes' theatrical split from Tom Cruise made celeb hounds' jaws drop, her latest move is sure to spread grins across the Great White Way. The 33-year-old actress will return to Broadway this fall in Theresa Rebeck's "Dead Accounts," it was announced Thursday.

"I am thrilled to...

Yeung Fai will never forget why his father died. He remembers it every time he steps on stage, with a mismatched collection of hand-sized puppets.

“In China, everybody wants to forget about this,” Fai said. "But for me, I never forget."

Fai’s father, Yang Shen, was a puppeteer and victim...

HuffPost Culture is spotlighting a few new songs from the Tanglewood archives each week. Check back for the latest additions.

Across the country, classical music festivals are filling the summer air with symphonies, but none can compete with the long-distance run of festivals -- Tanglewood -- which runs...

"Macbeth" should not be a one-man show. The man, and concept, fueling a new adaptation are both such appealing choices, though, it's enough to convince you that it should. Man: Alan Cumming. Concept: man cycles through multiple personalities in an insane asylum.

As your eyes and ears take in...

June 12, 2009, is a day Iranians will remember as one when their hearts sank and rose simultaneously. The news that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had supposedly beat progressive presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi in a landslide was unbelievably disheartening -- so unbelievable, in fact, that the populace took collective heart in its...

Did you think you'd heard the words call. me. maybe. more times than you ever wanted to? You were wrong.

Electronic musician Dan Deacon's acapella version of Carly Rae Jepsen's addictive song layers the words 147 times, exponentially. BRAIN MALFUNCTION.

The track is just one off a FORTY-THREE-track cover,...

"Can I get a little help from my friends?"

Fumbling to get the mike working, Ringo Starr used a little Beatles humor to let the crowd know it hadn't escaped him why they were at his art show.

The 71-year-old drummer's latest round of MS Paint art had...

Pete Hayes, the drummer for South London dream pop band Echo Lake, died last Thursday at 25. The band's guitarist Thom Hill posted the news on their website, with a tribute to Hayes:

I can’t believe I’m actually typing these words, we’re all completely devastated and...

With the Empire State Building peeking over her shoulder, Fiona Apple delivered a raw, temperamental, and at times disturbing performance at The Standard Hotel's Boom Boom Room in New York Monday night. Apple walked out in a predictable outfit (fact: my colleague predicted it) defined by its severity -- a...

If you grew up in the 90s, it probably means you have a blind appreciation for the MS Paint school of art, be it an ironic or earnest one. It also means you have something in common with Ringo Starr, Beatles legend and computer art aficionado. Ringo first began toying...