Contra!
Introducing our criticism section
THE NEW CRITIC — CONTRA
The critic has two roles: to worship excellence and to wage war on its behalf.
Critics are the torchbearers of taste. For every generation of renegades and dilettantes, a new class of sentries must rise up to defend the gates of excellence.
Now a young fleet of artists takes to the fore. They are our comrades and rivals, our ex-lovers and sworn enemies. Who will challenge them? Who will reward their victories and punish their crimes?
The duty falls on us, the New Critics, to wield the sword of Sontag and Trilling, of Mencken and Kael.
Today marks the introduction of lean and mean criticism to the New Critic retinue.
In Contra, our critics will impress the nutrients of a healthy culture — the requisite cruelty, suspicion, spite, and congratulation — upon the significant works of generation z.
We, the editors, will match our critics and subjects like psychic partners: in exposing something about the other, they shall reveal something, too, about themselves. The two will meet in the arena of our reviews like sumo wrestlers, thwacking their bellyrolls together in eternal, aesthetic combat.
New Critics, excess eats the page away; dispassion begets the languor of indifference. Do not interpret, nor reference, the work to death. Do not fear the almighty I — its lifeforce is the soul of everything. Do not cower below the blanket of your reputation.
At last, rush to the theater! It will not write about itself.
Thus begins Review Week — five days of Contra, five nights of gore and glory.
THE YOUNG AMERICANS