📻 Hello, thanks for tuning in. Today’s edition of Arpeggio is divided into two parts: quick profiles of music executives and established artists signed to Columbia Records, including their recent releases. Enjoy! For an updated list of music from rising artists signed to Columbia, check out the playlist below. Columbia Records: Weekly Mix The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by a group of investors and Edward Easton. The name is derived from the original headquarters located in the district of Columbia.

As someone who has created a number of “best of” lists, I can tell you they are subjective at best. Who is to say this restaurant or that bar is really better than the one down the street? Sure, there’s criteria that goes into picking a top 10 or 17 or whatever number list, but it also comes down to taste, popularity, and… ncG1vNJzZmiZop6vprrDnqmso6ljwLau0q2YnKNemLyue89orqiqnJnAbq7ErKtmrJWmwqq4wA%3D%3D

Jonathan Lethem is the only novelist I can think of—although I could, erroneously, imagine others—who cites among his influences both Philip K. Dick and Barbara Pym. These names may seem at odds. Dick wrote science-fiction about paranoia and technology. Pym, mid-century comedies about the British middle-classes. But Pym was a secret modernist, and you could argue that Dick’s dystopias are satires of social anxiety. And Lethem—author of thirteen novels and counting, not to mention numerous short story collections and non-fiction books—is adept at turning genres and influences inside-out.

This column is “It’s new to me,” in which I’ll play a game I’ve never played before — of which there are still many despite my habits — and then write up my thoughts on the title, hopefully while doing existing fans justice. Previous entries in this series can be found through this link. In 1991, when Fatal Labyrinth was given a makeover and a North American release on the Sega Genesis, the term “roguelike” didn’t exist yet.

Three months ago, I decided I’d become an art critic. I was reading Dean Kissick’s Spikecolumn and What it Means to Write About Art: Interviews with Art Critics; I was chugging my former colleague Nate Freeman’s “Wet Paint” gossip column and checking out what Schjeldahl and Hilton Als had to say in my girlfriend’s barely touched New Yorker back issues. I went to a show and promised to write about it.