Two years ago, we started Avidly. Today, we’re starting something else: Avidly’s life as an LA Review of Books Channel. This feels legitimating. But what is it, exactly, that Avidly is trying to make legitimate? What are we trying to make real? Avidly is different from other LARB Channels because its identity isn’t bound to…
As a part of Avidly’s process of celebrating one year of ourselves, we’re revisiting some favorite essays. Please enjoy rereading Jordan Stein’s remarkable treatise on the very serious intellectual value of Adorno Cats. Silly Theory November 20, 2012 By Jordan Alexander Stein Or, The Second Time as Farce Some years ago, I found myself…
I troop forth replenish’d with supreme power, one of an average unending procession, Inland and sea-coast we go, and pass all boundary lines, Our swift ordinances on their way over the whole earth, The blossoms we wear in our hats the growth of thousands of years. Eleves, I salute you! come forward! Continue your…
As the year winds down, we here at Avidly would like to thank you for your amazing contributions and support and enthusiasm. We’d like to end the semester by looking back at a handful of excellent posts you might like to reread as you decompress from a busy fall. Note that this doesn’t aim to…
Origins Sarah M: For me the motivation for Avidly came from this sense that there was a shortage of places that published the stuff I wanted to read, and also to write. I was interested in work that brought intellectual rigor to a range of topics, while at the same time bringing the enthusiasm of just,…
Welcome to Avidly, a summer school experiment, if you will. This is a place to indulge enthusiasm for thinking and feeling about culture. We’ll be publishing Tuesdays and Thursdays until around Labor Day. Equal parts archive fever and incitement to discourse, Avidly was borne out of a desire to preserve some of the conversations we are having across…