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Articles of NoteThe Architect of Brasília? Yes, it was urban planning gone badly wrong, but the city still contains some graceful modernist government buildings... more» Woodrow Wilson talked of “a common order, a common justice and a common peace” for America and the world. His is an idea ripe for revival... more» Is the golden age of biography now past? What future for a genre where the best subjects have been written about over and over and over again?... more» “You just cannot expect to have a country where everybody lives in a nursing home.” This is news Europe needs to know... more» Gene Weingarten got his Pulitzer Prize, and even got on Arts & Letters Daily, by being so original. So should he now turn his prize back in?... more» Tim Berners-Lee made the web because he had a poor memory for some things. John Naughton wonders if it won’t give us all a poor memory... more» You say you know what you’re doing. But what if your brain has made up its mind ten seconds before it tells you?... more» Unequal America The gap between rich and poor is growing: that much is certain. But of the consequences of the gap... more» To get parents to pick up their kids on time, a preschool started fining late parents. So did average tardiness decrease? Quite the reverse... more» She’d gone to hell and back and rebuilt her life. But then there was that episode with shingles. And then the itch. The Itch... more» “Dark,” the TV weatherman said. “And we’ll have continued dark throughout the evening.” George Carlin is dead. Last talk with Jay Dixit ... appreciation by Charles McGrath ... HBO clip ... Seinfeld on Carlin Here’s a test. Play Grand Theft Auto IV for a few hours, then go outside and find a locked car. Are you tempted to steal it?... more» Add more signs, directions, and limits on the road, and drivers will be safer, right? Wrong. Drivers tend to compensate... more» “Winning the host rights means winning the respect, trust, and favor of the world,” a Beijing Olympics official said in 2001. Yeah, sure... more» “I am astonished that the Bush people are so robotic,” says Peggy Noonan. Criticize the boss and you’re banished from the kingdom... more» Multitasking costs the economy. One study found workers took 25 minutes to recover from phone calls or emails and return to their original task... more» Lower men wallow in pity as swine do in mud, their pity for others being the same as their pity for themselves. Thus spake Nietzsche... more» Why do government efforts to correct problems so often seem to make things worse? Because people are the problems... more» Young radicals of the 1960s and today have mixed motives and impulses: at once craving autonomy and validation, guidance and self-definition... more» It’s not just NASA pilots who need to nap. Arts & Letters Daily readers need naps, too. Herewith, a complete guide... more» Imagine building a 1500 ft tunnel under the center of a Soviet-controlled city. The CIA did it, in secret, under Berlin... more» “This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong, / To love that well which thou must leave ere long.” For Fathers Day... more» “Sit. Stay. Make up for everything that is wrong in my life.” But they know that’s part of their job, too. We do love our dogs... more» The $100 Distraction Device. Why giving poor kids laptops is about as good for schools as giving them their own private PlayStations... more» “The professor in his corduroy, the dead man on the kitchen floor. But for what seemed like the longest time, we were the best of friends”... more» How to save money, as a woman. How to be a creative spirit, or find balance, as a woman. How to buy a house, as a woman. Why all these books?... more» James Watson does not have a high IQ. That’s what he told Henry Louis Gates – as proof that IQ is not all that important. Maybe... more» Sex and the City’s women are defined not by their talent and the swordplay of their wit, but by their ability to snare a man... more» Georges Simenon’s crime novels are superb and polished works of art that masquerade as pulp fiction... more» The Hindu-supremacist right in India is back, with a mass murderer leading Gujarat. Now consider the Communists in West Bengal... more» Win the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest. Patrick House did it, and he can show you how to do it too... more» “You will never,” Nassim Nicholas Taleb says, “be able to control randomness.” But knowing that fact can give you an edge... more» The fundamental differences between man and animal are overrated, Charles Darwin felt. Alex the parrot helps prove his case... more» ... video Top ten solutions to the world’s biggest problems. The Copenhagen Consensus says micronutrients must take the highest priority... more» Roberto Mangabeira Unger is Brazil’s answer to John Stuart Mill – a century and a half later and a lot nattier... more» The cubicle revolution in office plans was above all ideological. Cubicles were to create a utopia for Dilbert... more» Charles Darwin’s language sings in The Voyage of the Beagle. It is the work of a young man intoxicated by the tropics... more» “Truman Capote I truly loathed,” says Gore Vidal. “The way you might loathe an animal. A filthy animal that has found its way into the house”... more» Christianity’s collapse has wrecked U.K. society and family life, leaving the country defenseless against radical Islam, says Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali... more» ... more» The charges against video games – that they stunt minds and spark addiction – are based on ignorance of what gamers do when they sit down to play... more» The chasm between the humanities and the sciences can be bridged with a new kind of thinking that uses the strengths of both disciplines... more» It’s in opera as in life, Ian McEwan says: “Conversations are a kind of duet.” That is why he has now written an opera libretto... more» Seated in the Memorial, he looks so big. But his hair is uncombed, his tie askew, his fingers fidgety. Abe Lincoln is still only a man... more» The Betrayal of Judas. Did a “dream team” of biblical experts assembled by National Geographic mislead millions?... more» The future looks different from the past, but on a grand cosmological scale, maybe it’s all the same. Somewhere, maybe time runs backwards... more» At the end, Susan Sontag’s son colluded with his mother’s fantasy that she wasn’t dying. Doing this was not without cost... more» Using an odorless dye to color white wine red induces wine tasters to use red-wine descriptors for it. As for martinis... more» The real test of character, George Orwell noted, is how you treat someone who has no possibility of doing you any good. It’s a matter of honor... more» Just say “no.” Why don’t more women go into science and engineering? Shocking new research suggests they actually aren’t interested... more» “If the old days in China were so terrible, why the long queue at Mao’s tomb?” P.J. O’Rourke wanted to respond, “They’re making sure he’s dead”... more» “I was raised on chicken fat.” Will Elder, a founding spirit of Mad magazine from 1952 is dead at the age of 86... more» ... more» Can you engineer the kind of insight that leads to invention? Nathan Myhrvold left Microsoft and struck out on his own in order to find out... more» You got a problem with that? Why do New Yorkers seem so rude? Joan Acocella wonders... more» ... Then there’s NYC’s suicide tourism. Does she insist on dragging you to Sex and the City? The agony. No man should have to sit through this movie. Now, a solution... more» Britain’s nearest neighbor and oldest enemy: No nation stirs such conflicting emotions in the British breast as France... more» Does China operate sweatshops? How could you know? One way to find out is to send over some inspectors. Easy... more» Richard Rorty was lovable as a person, and as a philosopher both perceptive and, at times, intensely irritating... more» Gleaming pneumatic women: the female ideal pushed by laddie magazines is as smooth and lifeless as an iPhone... more» With Russia flexing its military muscle, are the chances of an accidental nuclear war back again on the increase?... more» Frida Kahlo knew a way to show a certain emotion, at once accusatory, nervy, furious, a little adolescent, and sometimes even funny... more» ... image Jesse Jackson is relieved when he hears footsteps behind him, turns around, sees it’s a white man – and figures he won’t be mugged. Is this acceptable?... more» Suppose we found remnants of algae or a trilobite on another planet? It might be a bad omen for the human race... more» Human beings are impulsive, lazy, busy, inert, irrational creatures prone to all kinds of biases and errors: that’s why they need libertarian paternalism... more» Alice Walker cared so much about other people’s kids, she forgot her own. Her daughter says the writer “resigned from being my mother”... more» If Frederick Douglass were alive today, he would be dismayed by the reluctance of liberals to connect programs with the spirit that animates their politics... more» The book is not for burning. Contra its author’s dying wishes, son Dmitri will publish Vladimir Nabokov’s last novel, Laura... more» If in the end Niels Bohr was not able to explain it all to Margrethe, well, that was nature’s doing, not Bohr’s fault... more» The penalties for prostitution in Iran are severe – whipping and even execution. So how does the oldest profession fare in that land?... more» Saint Walter Cronkite intones in grainy footage or black and white stills – that’s the way it is, at the Newseum. Whatever... more» William Jefferson was inspired by love of his kinfolk to do great things. That’s why he had $90,000 cash in his freezer... more» Augusten Burroughs’s memory: what sort of freakishly bloated cortex retains after eighteen years the color of some random person’s belt?... more» Percival Lowell, a brilliant, rich, charming Boston Brahmin, thought a century ago he could see a network of canals on Mars. He got other people thinking... more» If you think you know who the winners are going to be, come November, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Enter the political betting markets... more» The British love their trees, but across the land beautiful old trees are being chopped down in their thousands. The reason? Safety rules and hungry lawyers... more» A child’s body had been found on the island of Jersey, in the grounds of a children’s home, said the BBC, and the media frenzy began... more» An atheist church? “The last thing atheists want to see is their rational set of ideas yoked up with the trappings of a religion,” says Daniel Dennett... more» “To shoot a man because you disagree with him about Hegel’s dialectic is after all to honor the human spirit,” says George Steiner... more» Diana was “a simpering Bambi narcissist,” Mother Theresa a “thieving fanatical Albanian dwarf.” Christopher Hitchens does have opinions... more» Crazy English. Li Yang’s cosmology ties the ability to speak English to personal strength – and national power... more» It is a truth universally acknowledged that available, sociable, and attractive men are hard to find for dinner parties... more» Trace the city walls of Elea today. Maybe Zeno formulated his paradoxes pacing these same stones 900,000 days ago... more» The dirty secret of travel guides: update your edition by plagiarizing another guide, or just Google that town you might have explored on foot... more» “A good English breakfast never lets you down.” No, it kills you, and that’s exactly what it is doing to Brits across their little islands right now... more» Plants are green because the sun that keeps them alive is a type G star. If they’d evolved for a red dwarf, plants would be black... more» Now 35 years on, how does Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying stand up as literature? In Elaine Showalter’s view, very well... more» India is about to create what may be the biggest mass eviction of indigenous people ever. All in the name of conservation... more» You can walk into an elevator one night, with your life in one kind of shape, and emerge from it with your life in quite another. Ask Nicholas White... more» Deconstruction was for M.H. Abrams a problem from the start. He had doubts about the idea that “for hundreds of years people have missed the real point”... more» A bad night at the opera. But at the Met, the talent pool is formidable, and even Tristan und Isolde can end happily. Sort of... more» Much of what we know about the ancient world we owe to Herodotus, the only travel writer in print for 2,500 years. A.P. David explains... part 1 ... part 2 The pop music industry has sadly come to depend on “heritage acts” – wrinkled, dyed-hair, aging stars – to pack houses and make money... more» We need a deadly sins update. Anyway, Pride, Sloth, and Gluttony are now self-esteem, relaxation, and having gourmet tastes. P.J. O’Rourke offers new sins... more» No wonder Hugo Chavez was upset when Colombia struck at the FARC terrorists in their home camp. He’s been giving them money and arms... more» Paul Theroux depicted V.S. Naipaul ten years ago as a stingy, tantrum-prone, racist snob badly in need of driving lessons. He was far too kind... more» Walt Whitman had imagined his poetry would be read by American workers. But his most receptive audience was the British intelligentsia... more» More than half the world’s building cranes are at present in China. Robert Macfarlane can count 34 of them from his apartment windows... more» Let’s face it: Batman and Robin, as many gay writers have so fondly noted, are a tad campy. They both love flowers... more» With his legit literary career in decline, Rupert Smith took on a nom de porn and entered the parallel universe of erotica... more» Peanut Lolita, a liqueur with a grainy texture and an overwhelming taste of whiskey and peanuts. But what a name... more» The poor suffer, of course. But why do some poor people act to ensure their continued indigence? Charles Karelis wonders... more» How long you live, whether you win or lose cancer lotto or Parkinson’s bingo, have little to do, says Michael Kinsley, with life’s other successes... more» As a waitress in a posh restaurant, she was ally, authority, and confidante for her customers – all within 30 seconds... more» Just before it was to open with an exhibit of Titian, Botticelli, and Caravaggio, a major New York gallery has been shut by a judge... more» ... more» Switzerland: a small country with a skilled workforce, booming exports, and enormous prosperity has become the envy of Europe... more» That “lovable old-fashioned bundle of ink and cellulose,” the newspaper, will land for the last time on a doorstep one day in 2043... more» Does it not demean a woman, every bit as much as it demeans a man, to make of her either a victim of men’s appetites or a fantasist of them?... more» Did Samuel Taylor Coleridge compose a blank-verse translation of Goethe’s Faust and publish it anonymously in London in 1821?... more» Cities declined as they emptied while the suburbs swelled. History moves on, and now it is the suburbs that are poised for decline... more» He sat alone in a room for 24 hours with 6 TVs, a laptop, and 2 radios watching and reading only political pundits and blogs. Yes, it can be done... more» China’s new intelligentsia. Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them... more» Like the United States, Ireland is at the tail end of a housing- and consumer-fueled boom – and its luck is running out... more» Religion may have evolved as an adaptive benefit for human beings. But once you know that, you’ll derive no such benefits from religion... more» Suppose you had a nose job, but then decided you liked your old nose better. Maybe with the help of science, you could regrow it... more» By turns adulatory and neglectful, the English did not know what to make of Edward Elgar in his life, and have felt ambivalent about him ever since... more» Arthur C. Clarke, whose visions of the future became scientific fact, is dead at the age of 90... NYT ... LAT ... WP ... AFP ... Guardian ... Telegraph ... London Times ... Salon ... Edward Rothstein Yes, the conservative revolution did get its start in the 1970s, and yes, it did succeed. But not quite as completely as its champions would suggest... more» The dictatorial capitalism of China carries the seeds of its own demise. In the short term, such countries are forces to be reckoned with, but... more» It’s always a shock when firebrands of the left abandon their old politics and turn right. But this sort of thing has a history... more» ... David Mamet is the latest Encyclopedia Britannica’s sales for its 32 volume set peaked in 1990. Today, paper encyclopedias are in deep trouble... more» Catholicism was an immigrant church in the 19th century. As the Pew study shows, it’s on its way to becoming one again... more» Though the rational mind knows what a picture is, it’s hard to hit a baby’s photo on a dartboard: our aim falls prey to deep intuitions... more» Figure skating: fiercely individualistic and starkly conformist, with a fair modicum of corruption. Its popularity is in freefall... more» Gustave Courbet’s Femme nue couchée, an erotic masterpiece of 1862, was lost for 50 years after the end of WWII... more» The next bubble must be large enough to recover the losses from the housing bubble collapse. How bad will it be? Some rough calculations... more» Kinship and reciprocity are the “twin pillars of altruism in a Darwinian world.” So altruism is an urge wired into us by selfish genes?... more» Despite paranoia about biotech and routine panics over it, America’s gee-whiz attitude toward machines may yet make the country a haven for nanotech... more» Fashion provides a way to now and again liquidate the accumulated dross of consumer lifestyles. The “cleansing effect” is good for us all... more» In 1908 astronomers thought the Milky Way galaxy made up the entire universe – it was an “island universe” in an infinite void. Ideas keep changing... more» Yet another faked memoir: this one from a “mixed-race former child drug-runner” from South-Central L.A.... more» ... Well, it wasn’t a Holocaust memoir ... like this one. Who was it who said women aren’t funny? Chances are it was a man – and these days the joke is on him... more» The New York Times Most Stolen Book List: Philip K. Dick, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, and Jim Thompson. Or any graphic novel... more» Ethnonationalism is not just a detour in European history: it’s an enduring propensity of the human spirit that must be faced... more» When Gen. Raymond Odierno took over the Multi-National Corps-Iraq in 2006, Iraq was in flames. He has become the Patton of Counterinsurgency... more» William F. Buckley, architect and builder of modern conservatism, is dead... Nat’l Review memorials ... AP ... NYT ... WP ... old columns ... Sam Tanenhaus ... Slate ... Wash Times ... Moderate Voice ... Boston Globe ... Books by Buckley ... Guardian ... Roger Kimball ... Myron Magnet ... Chron Higher Ed ... Time ... David Boaz ... Conrad Black ... Cap Weinberger ... Nat’l Post ... Reason ... Buckley vs Mailer ... John McCain ... Rick Perlstein ... Telegraph ... London Times ... Clive Crook ... Robert Semple ... John Miller ... John Bogert ... Julia Keller ... Michael Seringhaus ... Andrew Malcolm ... Taki ... Peggy Noonan ... Jeet Heer ... David Brooks ... William Kristol ... Terry Eastland ... Andrew Ferguson ... Christopher Hitchens ... Joseph Bottum ... Kevin Mattson Dmitri Nabokov has turned to his dead father for advice on whether to burn the secret manuscript of Vladimir Nabokov’s last novel... more» More expensive wines taste better than cheaper wines, a new study shows. Even when they are exactly the same wine... more» We’re made for math, but only up to a point. Our sense of what a number is stands independent of language, memory, and even reason... more» Assassination works, when you’re trying to get rid of a tyrant. It is a less successful as a way to influence democracies... more» Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 1962 Last Year at Marienbad made little sense to its viewers, but it was perfect for its moment in the history of taste... more» Peter Gelb wanted “theatrical values” for the Metropolitan Opera, and live movie house screenings were his gimmick. Hey, they work... more» Golf in decline: the number of people who play the game 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000... more» “The idea of coming to New York,” says Stephen Koch, “was transformative. You would become a different person here.” Many writers have agreed... more» Americans are deeply divided over the wisdom of making space warfare a part of the national military strategy. Risks are manifold... more» The freaks and geeks of the 9/11 Truth movement are on to something. They just haven’t yet figured out what... more» Alain Robbe-Grillet, an enfant terrible of France’s literary establishment, is dead at the age of 85... Telegraph ... Reuters ... NYT ... BBC ... Le Monde ... Le Figaro ... AP ... l’Humanité ... London Times ... Independent Do professors indoctrinate students by expressing a political ideology in the classroom? Good question. Watch this space... more» “I can’t get a job, I have no money, I can’t get married, what can I say?” For Mr. Sayyid and other young Egyptians, religious fervor offers an answer... more» Libertarians see profit as the basis of stability and opportunity, others see only greed. But a new study shows business creates peace... more» Beware a slightly too-slick essay as part of your college entrance application. It may raise a DDI alert: “Daddy did it”... more» Is the incidence of autism rising? No. It’s a matter of what we now call “autism.” As for MMR vaccines, or mercury... more» ... more» With Christianity’s hold over people in decline and Islam on the rise, Europeans are more defensive of their cultural heritage... more» |
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New BooksArtist of wondrous Vermeers? Except that they were not so wondrous, and they were most certainly not Vermeers... more» China: both proud and resentful, open and closed, like us yet not at all like us. Still, the onetime sick man of Asia is in exuberant health... more» “Ay, in the very temple of Delight / Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine.” John Keats knew her intimately, and delight as well... more» Readers are incurable fabulists. Take that ordinary chap, Franz Kafka. We prefer him as a man of metaphysical mystery... more» Richard Gatling invented a mechanized seed planter: seeds dropped from a hopper one by one into the furrow. Why not use the same idea for a gun?... more» Man goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, my penis is burning.” Doctor explains, “That means somebody is talking about your penis.” What is it about jokes? ... more» ... more» ... more» No one will doubt the intense emotions that drive David Rieff’s memoir of his mother’s death. But books are not made out of emotions... more» Jump-cut, whip-pan, purposeless camera move: Jean-Luc Godard remakes narrative form with his every movie... more» The Black Plague killed millions and at the same time opened up history for survivors, changing the whole future of Europe... more» Will unplugging our cellphone chargers or turning TVs off standby reduce energy use and help fight global warming? How do the numbers stack up?... more»
Sure, the Lolita Effect may be real. But little girls do also spend time reading books, jumping rope, and playing ball... more» Casanova: priest, con-man, writer, soldier, violinist, alchemist, prisoner, fugitive, gambler, intellectual, and great lover... more» The British invented curry? Not quite. But the Madras curry (Tamil: kari) was born with the East India Company... more» “Let them have a good dose where it will hurt them most,” said Churchill. “The Germans should be made to suffer in their own homelands and cities”... more» Work and sex have always been prime movers of Lord Snowdon. Even confined to a wheelchair the old goat can’t be stopped... more» For all of Churchill’s faults, we may still be grateful for a 1930s politician who found it intolerable even to breathe the same air as the Nazis... more» Mrs. Thatcher viewed Ferdinand Mount as “an idle and effete youth.” But she came to admire his powers as a wordsmith. Right she was... more» Stuck in a Washington traffic jam, you may curse the name of Pierre L’Enfant. But it’s not really all his fault... more» Q: “So is Marxism-Leninism scientific?” A: “Surely not. If it were, they would have tested it on animals first.” Old Soviet jokes... more» In America, where God and Devil live with science in the age of 9/11, John Milton seems right at home — his Satan a model terrorist... more» Heinrich Heine, both playful and serious, called himself the last of the romantics and the first of the moderns... more» Country music knows what it means to be trapped by poverty, a lousy job, lust, and booze. To grasp the USA, just listen... more» Pakistan tribal frontier: a nightmare landscape of unknowable mountains swarming with enemies? This is not the entire story... more» Pat Buchanan’s Spenglerian rhetoric about the decline of the West lays bare the racist and reactionary premises of his thought... more» Richard Wright knew what once faced a little black boy in a big white world. “This was the culture from which I sprang. This was the terror from which I fled”... more» Hugh Trevor-Roper was repelled by myths of Scottish nationalism and its tribal loyalties: concocted history had fired the minds of the Nazis... more» Humans evolved to live in small isolated groups and are finely tuned to seek people of common values. Hence we care about race... more» The Comanche empire once dominated New Mexico and much of Texas, its power a melange of kinship, trade, diplomacy, extortion, and violence... more» Germaine de Staël may not have been good-looking, but she had real charisma, brains, money – and Benjamin Constant... more» Awe-inspiring acts of imagination, impish acrobatics of diction, high-jinks of imagery, and dollops of wordplay. But is it good poetry?... more» Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn are both Russian prophets, holy fools, and dissidents. Not Anton Chekhov, for which we may be thankful... more» How could such a masterly writer as V.S. Naipaul turn out to be such a monster in his personal life? Perhaps by a conscious decision... more» The conceit that we can have any useful idea of what the world will be like in a hundred years is, Nigel Lawson says, inherently absurd... more» Those who worship at Ronald Reagan’s altar no longer hope to “make the world over again,” the line their icon used to borrow from Tom Paine... more» Churchill regarded Gandhi as “a fanatic and an ascetic of the fakir type well known in the East.” Well, yes. And no... more» “You know, guys,” he intoned, “sex is the greatest thing in the world.” He paused, and then added with infinite wistfulness, “But... more» Population anxieties used to be about starvation. Now they are about “saving the planet” from our rapidly breeding species... more» Pythagoras was right: his universe may not be as simple as he imagined, but it proves ever more comprehensible by the day... more» Scientists may be biased, but science itself, for all its flaws, is still the best system ever devised for grasping how the world works... more» Sean Wilentz rescues the real Ronald Reagan from the “mythological president” offered by fans on the right and critics on the left... more» Henry Kissinger’s Jewish origins are the real key to understanding both the man and the world’s reaction to him... more» Was WWII worth fighting? Get the facts and make up your own mind! No need for experts! This book tells all you need to know!... more» Shakespeare vs. Milton. Prithee, who is the greater figure in literary history? Nigel Smith thinks he knows the answer... more» Seven years’ distance from 9/11 reveals a brutal reality. For both his family and his country, Osama bin Laden’s attacks have turned a tidy profit... more» Like Edmund Wilson, Alfred Kazin laughed off John Kennedy’s attempt to wine, dine, and co-opt him... more» Religion is beliefs, ideas, rituals, customs. Conscience is deeper. It searches for the beliefs and ideas that make up religion... more» Wernher von Braun: a 20th-century Faust, a man willing to work with an evil regime in return for the resources to carry out his cherished research... more» So this Aristotle guy hops a boat from Athens, goes into the library at Alexandria, grabs some books, returns home and puts his name on them... more» V.S. Naipaul is a prospector digging along a vein he has worked before, says Joseph Lelyveld. Much of it still sparkles... more» Monolithic politico-corporate elites have a big place in Naomi Klein’s world. But they don’t quite fit every political situation... more» Postwar Britain: shabby frocks, sallow faces, and dreary meals of ground meat stretched with grated potato and oatmeal... more» The recrudescence of robust atheism means non-belivers need no longer need suffer lonely isolation... more» “Black hair means cowardice and great craftiness, yellow and pale white hair shows ignorance and clumsiness.” Wild ideas of the Greeks... more» Nina Khruscheva is Russian to the core, but also “as New York as they come.” She says it’s time for Russians to reread Vladimir Nabokov... more» James Frey’s latest depends not on plots or characters but “high concepts,” the bright, shiny clichés that Hollywood screenwriters use for their pitches... more» The Dalai Lama’s frequent meetings with Western leaders are now seen by China as provocations and used as an excuse not to meet with him... more» The past, historians like to say, is another country. Israeli history is another galaxy, writes Carlin Romano... more» Is licking an ice cream cone on the street beneath your dignity? What then is human dignity? Steven Pinker wonders... more» Our eyes are amazing, a genuine credit to evolution. So are our hands, not to mention our kidneys. But our brains?... more» How many writers got the Nobel Prize for Literature for a book that was largely ghostwritten? Winston Churchill, for one... more» “The union of poet and critic may not be good for either poetry or criticism.” True in many cases. Then there’s Adam Kirsch... more» You can argue with some credibility that John Stuart Mill was the greatest public intellectual in the history of Britain, maybe even the world... more» “Inscriptions and bird droppings are the only two things in Egypt that give any indication of life.” Flaubert said it, or so says Edward Said... more» Shopping gives our choices tangible effect. The enthusiasm with which people shop contrasts with their view of work... more» Nikola Tesla feared earrings, peaches, and touching people’s hair. Sure, another nutty inventor. But men like him changed our world... more» Philosophers often cannot resist writing about Shakespeare, with his depth and complexity. Alas, they are mostly ill-equipped to do so... more» Prokofiev’s dry wit resulted in some fine, bitchy one-liners. Mahler’s 7th Symphony was “like kissing a stillborn child”... more» Today we have nannies, but in the 19th century they had governesses. That plain Jane Eyre, for example... more» Classical music: abandoned, left behind sulking in its tent as culture moves on, with the action happening somewhere else... more» The house embodies our ideas of intimate family life and serves as our haven in a cold world. It’s also the site of Sisyphean labor, mostly female... more» The RAND Corporation remains one of the most potent and complex purveyors of U.S. imperialism. Its influence, positive and sinister, continues to be felt... more» In Peter Gay’s reading, modernist thinking is reduced to a psychological impulse: the lure of heresy. Yes, but... more» Antiquity cannot be owned by any culture or any nation state. It is the inheritance of all humanity and ought to be open to all, preserved in museums... more» ... excerpt Women: enslaved by patriarchal views of proper domestic toil, or expected to get a high-paying job. Susan Pinker explains... more» “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.” So she stands at the tower window, her magically long golden hair hanging down... more» As a student, Tony Judt was an ardent backer of Labor Zionism, worked on a kibbutz and volunteered in the 1967 war. But times change, and so did he... more» Dorothy Wordsworth’s story is one of bad dentistry, migraines, voyeurism, incest, and even “post-coital intensity” in prose style... more» Snake-oil merchants who knowingly prey on terminal cancer patients are the lowest form of moral life. Yet they thrive... more» A beautiful home ... a first wife ... jealousy, a wreck ... a terrible event. But Daphne du Maurier did not yet know what would happen to Rebecca... more» While the student left marched in the 1960s, the right was quietly building toward the Reagan and Thatcher revolutions... more» In 1879 Vera Zasulich, 29, tried to kill the governor of St. Petersburg. He lived, but, oddly, so did she – as a celebrity... more» Arthur Rubinstein was as much a born playboy as a born pianist: always good for a party, a game of pool or poker... more» Richard Nixon told his friend and advisor Leonard Garment, “You’ll never make it in politics, Len. You just don’t know how to lie”... more» The red-state/blue-state paradigm is not only anti-democratic, it is deliberately so, in ways not unlike the USSR’s one-party state... more» Life in a hotel is bound to make you “idle and lazy, and dyspeptic from the want of exercise – a mere puppet and machine”... more» Okay, so Isaac Newton didn’t get bonked on the head by an apple. But he did have weird ideas about sex, gold, and religion... more» There is no biological evidence showing that women should stay home and raise babies. Nor is there evidence they’d prefer to be captains of industry... more» I ♥ Adorno. So does the great critic of pop culture and capitalism himself become a brand. Right there on a T-shirt... more» Only the defeat of Rommel at El Alamein kept German forces from entering Palestine and carrying out operations against the Jewish population... more» “When enough people share a delusion, it loses its status as a psychosis and gets a religious tax exemption instead.” Ronald De Sousa on how we think... more» Richard Florida has a point, but bike paths and arts festivals won’t matter much to the creative class if a city’s crime rate is like Detroit’s... more» Youth is not entirely wasted on the young. That long, long human childhood has its pluses, as David Bjorklund explains... more» Laetitia Pilkington’s memoirs are based on the idea that “men are bastards.” First and foremost her rebarbative husband... more» Orthodox Judaism, not unlike more familiar kinds of Christian fundamentalism, uses the Old Testament to keep the minds of believers in bondage... more» Herodotus and Thucydides invented history as a secular genre, distinct from the annals and king-lists of the ancient Near East... more» The compact between Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir was a travesty of their claims to honesty and freedom. They were glued together by their lies... more» Cheese crumbs placed in front of a pair of copulating rats may distract the female, but not the male. One more sex ’n’ science factoid... more» Sir Vidia’s wife, Pat, loved him, supported him, organised and advised him, was his devoted reader. And yet... more» ... more» ... more» ... more» ... more» Social awareness ribbons are must-have fashion accessories. They show you care. Especially about exhibiting what a caring person you are... more» “All human effort against me is useless,” said Napoleon, “for I succeed in all I undertake. Those who declare themselves my enemies die”... more» Whether it’s artisanal coffee, hand-made furniture, or bespoke suits, economies of the West routinely create niche markets for craftsmen... more» Death of the author: you fall out of print, move to a book dealer’s website, or a grad student does a thesis on you. Finally, a last reader will turn the last page... more» Migrant women make a choice to take their chances abroad. They are not passive victims, even if they choose to work in the sex industry... more» If all of John Steinbeck is in print 40 years after his death and is still force-fed to school kids, why is he so decisively off the literary map?... more» J.S. Mill’s idea of freedom did not imply that truths are equal, but rather that truth is arrived at in the clash of ideas, in open debate... |
