Culture

Octopussy by Other Means Octopussy by Other Means

In the movie that has been assigned to us to write about, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, Mike Myers from Saturday Night Live plays a secret agent named Austin Powers.

Jun 17, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

The Company Picnic The Company Picnic

A Wall Street Journal poll of 350 major corporations found that the median compensation, including stock options, for CEOs last year was $2,635,799. That was a growth of 3.1 perc...

Jun 10, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Robert Sherrill

Fast Times at Carver High Fast Times at Carver High

In Variety, where industry rumors congeal into analysis and analysis hardens to consensus, the news is bad for filmmakers like Alexander Payne.

Jun 10, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Pas de Deux, en Masse Pas de Deux, en Masse

A cluster of concepts that, before the seventies, had together formed the received idea of art and artists came under intense criticism in that decade.

Jun 10, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Arthur C. Danto

A Bookmaker’s Tale A Bookmaker’s Tale

"The real money in books was going to be made not by writing or publishing but by buying and selling the publishing companies themselves." Thus Michael Korda writes in his new me...

Jun 10, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Gayle Feldman

Master of All He Surveys Master of All He Surveys

As the presidential election of 1996 got under way, the press began to report that Bill Clinton's campaign strategy was heavily influenced by the advice of a shadowy figure who h...

Jun 3, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Schell

Mouth of the Dying Day Mouth of the Dying Day

W.H. Auden observed that biographies "are always superfluous and usually in bad taste," but Edward Mendelson's book on him, Later Auden, is neither.

Jun 3, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Grace Schulman

A Greek Bearing Gifts A Greek Bearing Gifts

Before I ask you to see Eternity and a Day, I'd better explain something about its director and co-screenwriter, Theo Angelopoulos.

Jun 3, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Leisurely Pleasure Leisurely Pleasure

This brief essay is taken from the latest book by Amos Oz, The Story Begins: Essays on Literature (Harcourt Brace).

May 27, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Amos Oz

Emancipation Proclamation Emancipation Proclamation

Upon his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison left behind some 2,000 pages of a never-finished second novel--more than forty years of fine-tuning what his literary executor, John F.

May 27, 1999 / Books & the Arts / John Leonard

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