How the Movies Saved My Life How the Movies Saved My Life
Seeing the world in black and white (with subtitles).
Nov 17, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Tom Engelhardt
Newt’s Surge Newt’s Surge
The pundits all can confidently speak Of Gingrich as the flavor of the week. The people who want anyone but Mitt Now say, in desperation, Newt is it. Yes, Newt’s astute—a crafty wheeler-dealer. His baggage, though, would fill an eighteen-wheeler— Affairs and ethics problems and, to boot, His mouth is something often off he’ll shoot. And if he’s scratched because he lacks decorum? What happens then? Get ready, Rick Santorum.
Nov 17, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Hemispheric Disturbances: On Michael Gazzaniga Hemispheric Disturbances: On Michael Gazzaniga
If our brains act according to the causal laws governing all matter, in what sense can we be said to be free?
Nov 16, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Cathy Gere
Blue Ridge: Streams Are Roaring Blue Ridge: Streams Are Roaring
Morning in the shade of a persimmon tree. Later, downstream below a hornbeam. A shy man hollers from across the valley. Every other rhododendron flower holds a tiny bee, just the way each macaroni shell in pasta e fagioli eventually holds a bean. A little Italian goes well up here. Latin, too&emdash;castanea, ruficapilla, caroliniana: Paroles: Dogwood calls the catbirds. Black cherry calls the blue.
Nov 16, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Merrill Gilfillan
Shelf Life Shelf Life
José Luis Guerín’s In the City of Sylvia, Tanya Hamilton’s Night Catches Us, Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York.
Nov 16, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Akiva Gottlieb
Restless in Oslo: On Ida Ekblad and Edvard Munch Restless in Oslo: On Ida Ekblad and Edvard Munch
An obscure dissatisfaction, a sense that no formal solution works for long, is shared by the art of Ida Ekblad and Edvard Munch.
Nov 16, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Starting out in Seattle: On Jonathan Raban Starting out in Seattle: On Jonathan Raban
Jonathan Raban has made a persona out of the self that feels nowhere at home.
Nov 16, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Vivian Gornick
The Pundits Contemplate Herman Cain The Pundits Contemplate Herman Cain
I We’ve spent a month of this campaign In trying daily to explain The steady rise of Herman Cain. Through willingness to risk a strain In every muscle of the brain, We’ve laid out all we think germane To help the public ascertain Why Cain consistently can gain (Despite, some charge, a moral stain) Support that doesn’t seem to wane, No matter how we all complain That thinking voters might ordain For Cain a four-year White House reign Is truly—to be blunt—insane. II So far, our work has been in vain.
Nov 10, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile Confessions of an Unrepentant Exile
Returning to Chile decades after Allende’s death, I was no longer a soldier of the revolution. What changed?
Nov 9, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Ariel Dorfman
Night Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist Night Thoughts of a Baffled Humanist
Punitive yet salvific, austerity is the ideology of a country that has turned against its own culture.
Nov 9, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Marilynne Robinson