The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Peter Schjeldahl on Good Cheer During Bad Times

12.19.2019 - By WNYC Studios and The New YorkerPlay

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Four months ago, Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker’s longtime art critic, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. In this week’s issue of the magazine, Schjeldahl writes a personal history about New York’s downtown art scene in the sixties, how he overcame years of abusing drugs and alcohol, what led him to art criticism, and the trick of finding beauty in cracks in the sidewalk. For the final Political Scene podcast of 2019, Schjeldahl joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss life beyond politics.

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