‘Zero Dark Thirty’, Snuff Film ‘Zero Dark Thirty’, Snuff Film
The film’s torture scenes do not excuse or glorify torture; they do something worse: draw the audience into accommodating it.
Jan 30, 2013 / Books & the Arts / JoAnn Wypijewski
Safety Net: On Thomas Bernhard and Siegfried Unseld Safety Net: On Thomas Bernhard and Siegfried Unseld
In his writing and life, Thomas Bernhard led a charge in the opposite direction. His publisher always broke his fall.
Jan 30, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Holly Case
Instructions From Lazarus Instructions From Lazarus
Having risen from the bed, after the ability to stand had been re-established, the gait still adjusting to the shifts of the body’s weight, I found myself in front of the streaked mirror in the hospital room. The halo was dull in that light, almost brushed in appearance. How saintly of me to wear a halo? I wanted a narrator to say: Here, he models the latest headwear, the finest in German engineering. But James Earl Jones was apparently unavailable. The pins buried in my skull looked like a nautical device of some kind. But there were no journeys for me to take, just a bed and a room. My nurse’s name was Zar, short for Lazarus. Of course his name was Lazarus. It fits with the theme of this whole thing. Zar said take it easy, said move slowly and think about each step as if you are learning to walk. But one doesn’t think about each step when learning to walk. We rise, we fumble, we shuffle, we fall. The wings, buried (thankfully) were just an itch between my shoulder blades, a slight tug on the muscles depending on the way I moved. Each night I prayed to make it out of the hospital before the wings made themselves known again.
Jan 30, 2013 / Books & the Arts / C. Dale Young
Diagram This: On Adrienne Rich Diagram This: On Adrienne Rich
A new collection of Adrienne Rich’s poems does not show her at her best.
Jan 30, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
The Russian Optimist: An Interview With Opposition Rocker Yuri Shevchuk The Russian Optimist: An Interview With Opposition Rocker Yuri Shevchuk
The well-known musician talks about the adoption ban, Pussy Riot and the future of the opposition movement.
Jan 27, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Katrina vanden Heuvel and Alec Luhn
Magna Carter Magna Carter
Every musical note has life in it. For six decades the composer Elliott Carter imagined that life precisely.
Jan 23, 2013 / Books & the Arts / David Schiff
Shelf Life Shelf Life
Shawn Francis Peters’s The Catonsville Nine.
Jan 23, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Mark Oppenheimer
Hotel Artists Hotel Artists
How working in hotels led Henri Matisse and Ian Wallace to rediscover the intoxicating purity of light.
Jan 23, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Crazy, Stupid, Guns Crazy, Stupid, Guns
Moussa Touré’s La Pirogue, Ruben Fleischer’s Gangster Squad
Jan 23, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Among the Blasphemers: On Salman Rushdie Among the Blasphemers: On Salman Rushdie
Joseph Anton is a tale of betrayals: of free speech, communities, religion, marriages, personal convictions, friends.
Jan 16, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Laila Lalami