Challenging the ‘Self-Made’ Myth Challenging the ‘Self-Made’ Myth
No one who has succeeded in America actually did it on his or her own.
Mar 21, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Katrina vanden Heuvel
How to Rehouse the American Dream How to Rehouse the American Dream
Our car-dependent, suburban, homeowner culture is no longer affordable. An exhibit at MoMA examines what to do about it.
Mar 21, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Alex Ulam
On Not Leaving the Field On Not Leaving the Field
Right-wingers who want to be heard Note Newt’s place is solidly third. But if right-wing votes were combined, The front-runner might fall behind. So they say to Newt, “Won’t you go?” And Newt, being Newt, answers no. Newt’s ideological kin Are dreading a moderate’s win. They argue that it would advance The cause if Newt gave Rick a chance To face Mitt not in a duet. And Newt, being Newt, still says nyet. “When England was under the blitz, Did Churchill say, ‘Let’s call it quits’?” Says Newt. “That is not what you see From statesmen like Churchill and me.” “Oh, please, just this once, Newt,” they say. And Newt, being Newt, says, “No way.”
Mar 21, 2012 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Havel’s Specter: On Václav Havel Havel’s Specter: On Václav Havel
The Czech playwright's enduring ideas about politics, truth and human nature.
Mar 21, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Caleb Crain
Azure Azure
It’s that wafer ash set next to the hardy Dutchman’s pipe that reminds me of the unlikely sight we caught on hotel cable TV: Al Schön espousing orange wines. Two decades ago, he was the school’s athlete-Platonist. And now we’re all as louche and brown around the edges as this Baronne Prevost. The Julia Child, the Rise and Shine —these rosebuds exist to ornament fulsome christenings. So it happens today that Azure is introduced toddling in a glade of bamboo topping out at a whisper on the hillside. “Azure, meet our Gray.” “Gray, Azure.”
Mar 21, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
Winging It: The Battle Between Reagan and PATCO Winging It: The Battle Between Reagan and PATCO
The true economic legacy of the Reagan years is not tax cuts but union busting.
Mar 21, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Chris Lehmann
Cicadas Cicadas
Gray rainbows in the nighttime irrigation. Immediately forgotten. Then I hear a child carry a tune in a whisper. I was dashing through those ashen rainbows immediately forgotten. You could truncate butterfly to butte and still get migration and a cumin route. But not camel. Not emu. Not Tuareg. Not a Russian garlic dome like painted clove on steppe nor geodesic ostrich egg. Totally forgotten, til the child’s moonbow tune whispered in what wagon, rickshaw, landau rattled me to a carrefour. I couldn’t tell the autumn from the drought, crescent over Quonset hut, or put language to the pulp that made me ill. Inside the mouth of the water-flow monitors, goblin goblin—robin. New World cicadas that chant in parabolas. A new address, a dryness, they stop. Focal chill.
Mar 21, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
Alice Kaplan: Angela Davis’s France Alice Kaplan: Angela Davis’s France
For a young black student, France was not the refuge it was reputed to be.
Mar 15, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Francis Reynolds
If Vaclav Havel Met Occupy’s Human Mic… If Vaclav Havel Met Occupy’s Human Mic…
The words of the former president of the Czech Republic resonate with the problems Occupy confronts today.
Mar 14, 2012 / Books & the Arts / Jonathan Schell
The Republican Finalists The Republican Finalists
Regarding those still in the race And all the sighs they engender, All small-time pols quote Brando now: “I coulda been a contender.”
Mar 14, 2012 / Column / Calvin Trillin