Georg Lukács, “Realism in the Balance” [1938], in Theodor Adorno et al., Aesthetics and Politics, 41:

One inescapable consequence of an attitude alien or hostile to reality makes itself increasingly evident in the art of the ‘avant-garde’: a growing paucity of content, extended to a point where absence of content or hostility towards it is upheld on principle.

This is a good thing: content is myth.

The Sound of Music is likely the best piece of Popera (in the English language) ever, followed closely by My Fair Lady.

Criticism of hipsters, whether they live in Brooklyn, Neukölln, or East London, is hackneyed.

The trouble with patriotic Russian propaganda is not that it’s propaganda but rather that it is so boringly predictable. The same cliched code words are shuffled around: CIA, fascists, oligarchs, NATO imperialism, etc. The same reports of Mr Putin’s popularity (sometimes 70%, sometimes 80%) indicate levels of support not seen since Stalin. It’s bargain bin junk, not even worth debunking.

My plea to TASS: be bold. Be original. Throw away the old CCCP counter-intelligence handbook. Surprise us!