Wartime Lies Wartime Lies
As Nazis dropped bombs in Warsaw, poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote a collection of literary criticism that sought to trace the rise of totalitarianism by deconstructing the mythologies of...
Dec 20, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Timothy Snyder
Rembrandt’s Year Rembrandt’s Year
2006 marks Rembrandt's 400th birthday, and an array of exhibitions, from the sublime to the silly, will open in Amsterdam, Washington and beyond. As the aesthetic hype escalate...
Dec 19, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Abigail R. Esman
Fear and Laughing in Las Vegas Fear and Laughing in Las Vegas
Lenny Bruce was a lone voice at a time when irreverent comedy could land him in jail on obscenity charges. But the spirit of Lenny Bruce hovered over the first annual Comedy Festiv...
Dec 15, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Paul Krassner
Harold Pinter: Art, Truth and Politics Harold Pinter: Art, Truth and Politics
The pursuit of truth in drama is elusive, but in life it is mandatory, wrote Harold Pinter, who died Wednesday at 78. When he won the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature, he condemned ...
Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / The Nation
Imitation of Art Imitation of Art
The Chronicles of Narnia is the perfect combination of Christian allegory and The Lord of the Rings, a well-crafted commodity and nothing more. The Ice Harvest, an anti-Christmas f...
Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
The Look of Truth The Look of Truth
Photographs are supposed to be unbiased recognitions of reality, but they're really self-portraits of the photographer. The Ongoing Movement, a blend of biography and analysis, exa...
Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Peter Plagens
Octoberfest Octoberfest
Four editors of October magazine trace the history of contemporary art. Though Art Since 1900 seeks to be comprehensive, its writers leave out entire movements and impose moralisti...
Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Pop Torture Pop Torture
Pop culture does more than validate the claim that torture could help foil bombs seconds before detonation.
Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Richard Kim
Rogue Scholars Rogue Scholars
Defenders of torture dwell not only in the White House and Pentagon, but in the halls of academia. When prominent law professors and academics cite the fantastic "ticking-bomb theo...
Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Tara McKelvey
Disco Inferno Disco Inferno
Military detainees have been subjected to starvation, sleep deprivation and now Metallica and Britney Spears. Blasted at high volume, torture music has become a weapon of war, used...
Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Moustafa Bayoumi