Watch: Nik Cohn and Ben Ratliff at 92NY
© Pascal Lemaître
Watch: Nik Cohn and Ben Ratliff at 92NY
Highlights from Nik Cohn's sold-out evening with Ben Ratliff at the 92nd Street Y, launching Corner Boy: Loiterings New and Old.
On October 27, Nik Cohn sat down with Ben Ratliff at 92NY's Unterberg Poetry Center to launch Corner Boy: Loiterings New and Old, and the house sold out. It was a rare public appearance for a writer who helped invent the way we write about pop. Over an hour, Nik and Ben, who edited the book and wrote its introduction, ranged across six decades of work:
Nik's first assignments for The Observer as a teenager
the hothouse years that produced Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom
the 1976 New York story that became Saturday Night Fever
"Apprehension," the new essay about his 1983 arrest
Muriel, the photo collage he has tended since 1964, which runs through the pages of Corner Boy
Our highlights reel, cut by Dave Henson, is above. The full conversation is in the 92NY archive.
Corner Boy has since drawn a four-star review in MOJO, praise from Jude Rogers in The Observer ("absolutely delicious to read"), and a long talk with Jack Denton in New York.
If you missed the Y, Nik and Ben will be back together on December 19 at the Crandell Theatre in Chatham, New York, to introduce a screening of Saturday Night Fever. Details here.
“The best writer about pop music . . . an inspiration.” —Jarvis Cocker, BBC Radio 6 Music
The definitive, lavishly illustrated collection of music writing, memoir, and reportage from the redoubtable Nik Cohn.
Release: Oct 6, 2026
Hardcover ISBN: 9798988670148
392 pages
UK release: Nov 5, 2026 • UK Price: £25