Lamentations of the Late-Night Comics Lamentations of the Late-Night Comics
While Jimmy Fallon tears his hair, Bill Maher laments, “It’s just not fair.” Dave Letterman begins to pout. They’ve heard that Herman Cain is out. In common with his late-night peers, Jon Stewart comes quite close to tears, He’d much prefer a case of gout To hearing Herman Cain is out. “The man is threatening our jobs,” Says Leno, as he softly sobs. Colbert is staggering about. He’s heard that Herman Cain is out. They pray together, on their knees: “Could we have Donald Trump back—please?”
Dec 7, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Of Saints and Caudillos: On Enrique Krauze Of Saints and Caudillos: On Enrique Krauze
A Mexican intellectual takes the measure of liberalism and revolution in twentieth-century Latin America.
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jorge Volpi
Scenes from ‘My Life as Sherlock Holmes’ Scenes from ‘My Life as Sherlock Holmes’
1. Feeling around for ideas in the dungeonette 2. Scattershot remnants of tulle and fur 3. To quell an especially decorative urge 4. The taxidermy machine in the hall 5. I enjoy life for a day or two 6. A set of alpaca calipers and an alpaca, in a plaza 7. To have banished disreputable grammar 8. Purloining a moment from the restless ocean 9. Vignette of a cat on a lap, ruminative 10. Before it all kicks off 11. Overheard: squawks from the surveillance pavilion 12. Adjective meaning “pursuivant to fishiness” 13. I take the case with a gothic reluctance 14. To the cave of the giant sloths 15. A salmon, a sirloin, a sticky situation 16. Getting pelted with elaborate hairballs in the kisser 17. Truth or carrier bags 18. I vanquish the wrong evil mastermind 19. The return of the alpaca 20. On the run 21. What dissemblers take for granted, sometimes 22. To tweak a surreptitious plan 23. One camelid down, one to go 24. Last ham standing 25. I relinquish my new friends with regret, and doughnuts 26. Sloping off to the hair palace 27. Having ravished a library for unseemly cheeses 28. Girdles within girdles, or faux circumference 29. A cob peering eerily through a sinister window 30. Dissection island
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Jane Yeh
Eels Über Alles: On Julio Cortázar Eels Über Alles: On Julio Cortázar
A novelist’s lyrical attempt to measure the immeasurable.
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Ben Ehrenreich
Cranks and Cogwheels Cranks and Cogwheels
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo.
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Scott Sherman: Is the Renovation of New York’s Public Library Modernization or Cultural Damage? Scott Sherman: Is the Renovation of New York’s Public Library Modernization or Cultural Damage?
Will the new president's mega-million-dollar makeover of the main library scare off scholars and leave the branches begging?
Dec 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Press Room
The Real J. Edgar The Real J. Edgar
Clint Eastwood's cinematic exploration of the FBI chief's rise to power is little more than a comforting myth.
Nov 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Beverly Gage
The First and the Last of Everything The First and the Last of Everything
The first fine dawn of life on earth The first cry of Man in the first light The first firefly flickering at night The first Noble Savage with the first erection The first song of love and forty cries of despair The first voyage of Vikings westward The first sighting of the New World from the crow’s nest of a Spanish galleon The first Pale Face meeting the first Native American The first Dutch trader in Mannahatta The first settler on the first frontier The first Home Sweet Home so dear The first wagon train westward The first sighting of the Pacific by Lewis & Clark The first cry of “Mark, twain!” on the Mississippi The first desegregation by Huck & Jim on a raft at night The first buffalo-head nickel and the last buffalo The first barbed-wire fence and the last of the open range The last cowboy on the last frontier The first skyscraper in America The first home run hit at Yankee Stadium The first ballpark hot dog with mustard The last War to End All Wars The last Wobbly and the last Catholic Anarchist The last living member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade The last bohemian in a beret The last homespun politician and the first stolen election The first plane to hit the first Twin Tower The birth of a vast national paranoia The first president to become an international criminal for crimes against humanity making America a terrorist state The dark dawn of American corporate fascism The next-to-last free speech radio The next-to-last independent newspaper raising hell The next-to-last independent bookstore with a mind of its own The next-to-last Lefty looking for Obama Nirvana The first fine day of the Wall Street Occupation to set forth upon this continent a new nation! Click here to listen to Ferlinghetti read this poem.
Nov 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Secret Paragraphs: On Alan Hollinghurst Secret Paragraphs: On Alan Hollinghurst
The Stranger's Child traces the vanishing of same-sex love through suppression and then, paradoxically, acceptance and openness.
Nov 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Maria Margaronis
Baseness: On Guantánamo Baseness: On Guantánamo
Gitmo in the present millennium is no departure at all from the American tradition in Guantánamo Bay.
Nov 30, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Peter C. Baker