Culture

The Delirium Scale: The Fiftieth New York Film Festival

The Delirium Scale: The Fiftieth New York Film Festival The Delirium Scale: The Fiftieth New York Film Festival

Among the standouts at this year’s NYFF are Christian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hills and Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers.

Oct 23, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

In the Country of No Country In the Country of No Country

In the country the buildings seem smooth as if their faces were lifted by benevolent surgeons— so laid-back, they rarely make a mistake.   And their doors—true the wood seems insecure when bothered by cathedral fantasies but they remain upright, with a steadfast reach like people who speak clearly in crisis.   To some the local is not alive—it is a process that has stopped, like a factory machine the day of the big shutdown.   But to others, who see past the horizon of the cliché industry returns to the valley an extravagant, steampunk renaissance fair.

Oct 23, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Jerome Sala

John Lennon and George McGovern: Another Side of the 1972 Campaign

John Lennon and George McGovern: Another Side of the 1972 Campaign John Lennon and George McGovern: Another Side of the 1972 Campaign

The McGovern campaign marked a turning point in many lives, including John Lennon’s.

Oct 22, 2012 / Jon Wiener

A Simple Guide to Every Single Republican Tax Proposal A Simple Guide to Every Single Republican Tax Proposal

(As verified by 178 independent studies)   Sure, sometimes they call it supply-side, And sometimes they say job creation Is risked if our entrepreneurs Think profits get snatched by taxation. It comes to the same simple credo Around which the party has danced: If rich people pay less in taxes, Then everyone’s life is enhanced.

Oct 17, 2012 / Column / Calvin Trillin

After the Euphoria: On the Arab Uprisings After the Euphoria: On the Arab Uprisings

What are the new rules of the political game in the Middle East? Nobody knows, but Marc Lynch’s The Arab Uprising is a useful guide.

Oct 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Patrick Cockburn

What Goes With What: On Richard Tuttle

What Goes With What: On Richard Tuttle What Goes With What: On Richard Tuttle

Richard Tuttle’s sculpture seems to proclaim “No spirit but in things.”

 

Oct 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

Madrigal Madrigal

People snap like asparagus stems. Oh no?   She is flying along the base paths and the sun is nestled in her hat. She has the color of a stone roof which clearly enjoys it.   If the year could do without spring, I’m guessing it would. The planet, mild analgesic, revolving around a similarly gaseous idea awash in consonants.

Oct 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Charles North

Uninvisible: On Dorothy B. Hughes Uninvisible: On Dorothy B. Hughes

In The Expendable Man, the story of an innocent under suspicion is given a racial twist.

Oct 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Charles Taylor

Breather Breather

     (after Henri Michaux)   How you work at it. Give it a rest Misfortune. Relax. Better let’s both take a breather. See what the other is all about. I destroy you.   My theater my harbor and my hearth. A gold cave. O new horizon (and real mother) I let myself go in your vaster light and amplitude along with the horror.

Oct 16, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Charles North

The Cuban Missile Crisis and Ownership of the World The Cuban Missile Crisis and Ownership of the World

Though the Cuban Missile Crisis was fifty years ago, imperial America and the threat of nuclear war remains. 

Oct 16, 2012 / Noam Chomsky

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