Lessons of Darkness: On Peter Maass Lessons of Darkness: On Peter Maass
For Peter Maass, oil is not a drug so much as a Pandora's box. Tap a well and base instincts spew.
Dec 16, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Mark Sorkin
Unidentified Unidentified
Hands touch--set off another round of deals and betrayals! I only hope I don't mistake whose lips and hands! Don't mix up all these break-ups and insomnias. When we let go, I'll try, my friend, to charge my memory! So you won't languish and expire like the others in my poems (the garbage heap of all my Casanovas!). So you won't be washed by rains for millennia, buried in my breast (mass grave for a thousand breasts!)... So you won't --you, my two-starred utter dark!-- end up one more corpse, gravemarker: Unknown. (Translated from the Russian byCatherine Ciepiela)
Dec 16, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Marina Tsvetaeva
Blackwater, Blackwater Blackwater, Blackwater
No one keeps track--so let's take a crack.
Dec 16, 2009 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Bob Dylan’s Christmas Album: Is this a Joke? Bob Dylan’s Christmas Album: Is this a Joke?
Fans have been puzzled and troubled by Bob Dylan's new Christmas album. To help figure out what Dylan is doing, we turned to Sean Wilentz -- he's the official historian at the offi...
Dec 13, 2009 / The Notion / Jon Wiener
The Revolution Will Be Televised The Revolution Will Be Televised
The oral history of America's radical tradition--performed by big Hollywood names like Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and Danny Glover.
Dec 8, 2009 / Books & the Arts / YouTube
Containing Welles Containing Welles
Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, Jason Reitman's Up in the Air and Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces.
Dec 2, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Sometimes a Small Redemption: On Ludmilla Petrushevskaya Sometimes a Small Redemption: On Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
For Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, the fantastical is always found in the startling, dark and unfathomable episodes of daily life.
Dec 2, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Like Lives: On Lorrie Moore Like Lives: On Lorrie Moore
A 9/11 story modeled on Jane Eyre, A Gate at the Stairs is Lorrie Moore's most ambitious novel, and her slipperiest work to date.
Dec 2, 2009 / Books & the Arts / David Wallace-Wells
Dow Plunges on News of Credit Crisis in the United Arab Emirates Dow Plunges on News of Credit Crisis in the United Arab Emirates
Here's something that will make you sigh.
Dec 2, 2009 / Column / Calvin Trillin
Prelude to a Murder Prelude to a Murder
The government's campaign to get Fred Hampton began long before it finally succeeded in killing him.
Nov 30, 2009 / Feature / L.F. Palmer, Jr.