Best of the Moment
arts-ideas-books
David Mermelstein | WSJ | 29 July 2010
Delightful interview with a charming, clever, Yo-Yo Ma. "My job as a performer is to make something memorable. If I do something nice but forgettable, it needn't have happened"
Michael Schaub | NPR | 28 July 2010
Excerpt from new Gary Shteyngart novel, preceded by short review. Absurdist humour, satire combine in vision of US as cash-strapped police state all but owned by China, at war with Venezuela
Tim Adams | 25 July 2010
Wonderfully straight-faced comic portrait of Michael Munn, hack writer and amateur actor, who claims intimate friendships with stars from Olivier to Burton by way of Steve McQueen
Ashley Makar | Killing The Buddha | 26 July 2010
Wide-ranging conversation about history and purpose of American penal system, punishment, torture, with Caleb Smith, Yale professor. Interesting—and depressing— throughout
Theodore Dalrymple | New English Review | June 2010
Wry reflection on desire and consumer goods. "One has only to observe a street of shoppers on a Saturday afternoon to understand the futility of consumption as a path to happiness"
Lera Boroditsky | WSJ | 24 July 2010
Does language determine how we think? Linguists, philosophers have argued question for centuries. Studies that manipulate language directly, and look for effects in cognition, show answer is "yes"
Paul Graham | July 2010
Nice, gentle, short essay on the difficulties of concentrating on more than one thing at the same time. The thing you're thinking about in the shower is the thing you'll do best today
Heather Havrilesky | Salon | 17 July 2010
"Mad Men" shows how American dream was cynically packaged for mass consumption in post-war years—creating a society perpetually distracted, dissatisfied
Anthony Gottlieb | New Yorker | 18 July 2010
Elegant discussion of voting methods and their imperfections, around the world and through history, beginning with Venetian Republic's ten-step process for choosing Doge
Alexandra Alter | WSJ | 16 July 2010
New market for luxury limited editions throws up $40,000 book about Ferrari; $12,500 book on moon landing, moon rock included; $75,000 book on Tendulkar, with cricketer's blood in paper
Dominic Sandbrook | New Statesman | 15 July 2010
Lovely vignette. He'd now be 82, perhaps with much of the easy charm of a Nelson Mandela, living handsomely on royalties from iconic photographs of his youth. More, please
Steven Zipperstein | Jewish Review Of Books | Summer 2010
Amazing life of Mark Zborowski: anthropologist, Soviet spy, author of standard work on Jewish life in pre-Holocaust Europe. Jailed in US, made final career shift into experimental medicine
Benjamin Secher | Telegraph | 9 July 2010
Conversation with celebrated magicians. Interesting throughout, especially on Las Vegas, and on how they work together. “We are artistic and business partners, not primarily friends”
Conor Dillon | The Millions | 13 July 2010
Neglected mark of punctuation roars back into life, jump-starter for short, punchy sentences online. "The jumper colon is a paragraphical Red Bull, a rocket-launch of a punctuator, the Usain Bolt of literature"
Chris Jones | Walrus | July 2010
Visit to Maastricht Art Fair with Marc Mayer, director of Canadian National Gallery, trying to make big splash with small budget. Good insight into mix of instinct, logic, planning that determine an acquisition
Matt Ridley | Reason | July 2010
Extract from Ridley's "Rational Optimist". History of innovation shows that main stimulant is willingness and capacity among inventors to share ideas. Money helps, but networking helps more
William Deresiewicz | New Republic | 7 July 2010
Fine, long assessment of British novelist's career. He is "gesturing toward the main tradition of English fiction", but imaginative, stylistic limitations stop him short
A.N. Wilson | Observer | 4 July 2010
Memoir of dark, mischievous, chain-smoking British novelist. "I'm sorry we've no small change, pet," she told a Cancer Research collector in her local pub, "but if it helps … I have got cancer"
Jonathan Rauch | FiveBooks | 4 July 2010
Governor of Indiana, possible 2012 presidential contender, recommends five books on conservatism—leading with Hayek and Friedman. Refreshingly positive approach, not merely anti-government posturing
Chicago Manual Of Style Online | 1 July 2010
Issues include: how to cite a T-shirt; using quotation marks for unspoken orders; maximum number of semi-colons permissible in one sentence; difference, if any, between "among" and "between"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb | New Statesman | 5 July 2010
Extract from postscript to new edition of Taleb's book. Which is to say, nothing new for Taleb followers, but, for new readers, an excellent introduction to his arguments about probability and financial markets
Toby Lester | Boston Globe | 4 July 2010
At turn of 16th century two young Germans came across letter from explorer Amerigo Vespucci describing "new world", rushed out updated world-map with variant of Amerigo's name used for added continent
David Grann | New Yorker | 4 July 2010
Superb, gripping long feature about Canadian art-world figure, Peter Paul Biro, who offers to authenticate works of art using fingerprints. All very persuasive, until one authenticates Mr Biro himself
Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest | 28 June 2010
Results are in for this year's worst-ever first sentence. It's a beauty, one for the ages. That said, I have a sneaking preference for the Chandleresque winner of the Detective-fiction section
Anthony Daniels | Criterion | June 2010
Charming, delicate reading of Flaubert's short story, "Un Coeur Simple", marvelling at the author's capacity to find beauty in the life of a plain servant-woman whose two loves are God and a stuffed parrot
Nora Ephron | New Yorker | 27 June 2010
“I need my umlaut,” Blomkvist said. “What if I want to go to Svavelsjö? Or Strängnäs? Or Södertälje? What if I want to write to Wadensjö? Or Ekström or Nyström?”
Ursula Lindsey | The National | 24 June 2010
Sympathetic profile of great Egyptian writer, chronicler of his country's malaise. His latest novel a melancholy, masterful, very adult investigation of his past
Michael Dirda | Barnes & Noble Review | 24 June 2010
Charming essay on Roman life in first century AD, including eruption of Vesuvius. Pliny's letters spiced with tales of haunted houses, Vestal virgins, "strange cultists known as Christians"
Emrys Westacott | Philosophy Now | 24 June 2010
More CCTV makes it more likely that transgressions will be detected, punished. People will form rule-abiding habits. But does this conditioning stunt our growth as moral individuals?
Alastair Macaulay | NYT | 22 June 2010
Scathing, funny review of Savion Glover. "Hard to think of a celebrated dancer performing today who is more tedious, more devoid of stage sense ... From the ankle up he’s an ungainly bore"
Stephen Moss | Guardian | 22 June 2010
Lovely, light-touch interview with Life of Pi author. Probes gently and effectively on Martel's poorly received latest novel, which may be doomed for attempting a fictional treatment of the Holocaust
Dana Stevens | Slate | 17 June 2010
Funny, sad review of Toy Story 3, "a near-perfect piece of popular entertainment ... Our cast of playthings confronts the irreversible forward march of time, the pain of abandonment, the loss of love"
Errol Morris | NYT | 20 June 2010
Quirky essay on "Dunning-Kruger Effect"—when a person is too stupid to recognise just how stupid he is. Intelligent people make allowances for "unknown unknowns", in Rumsfeld's much-mocked phrase
Karen Wright | Intelligent Life | Summer 2010
Diary of meetings with Hockney over ten-year period. Interesting less for the writing than for the glimpses of Hockney's techniques, and his openness to new technologies
Nate Barksdale | Cardus | 11 June 2010
Beautiful, informative, funny essay on history and practice of film subtitling. Who knew that Anita Loos made her name subtitling for Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith?
Mike Lacher | McSweeney's | 15 June 2010
Imagined monologue from much-derided typeface. Full of swearing, very funny—but does require some minimal knowledge of fonts, and the special place of comic sans
Jed Perl | New Republic | 9 June 2010
Publication has become so quick and easy that we have lost the sense of writing as a private act, with its own purpose and value, quite distinct from the public act of being read
Stephen Fry I 9 June 2010
Text of inspiring Royal Academy speech. In an infantilised world our appetite is great for the complex, ambiguous, peculiar. In other words, for art. We should be less embarrassed, more Wildean in our engagement with it.
Sarah Fay I The Believer I June
Conversation with, and sympathetic profile of, radio host Michael Silverblatt, interviewer of literary greats. "My advice to you: sit forward, listen with all your might, and don’t ever be thinking of your next question"
Ilan Stavans | Chronicle Review | 6 June 2010
Previous generation of Latin American novelists attacked, satirised military dictators. Why doesn't current generation of writers do the same for left-wing caudillos, such as Hugo Chávez?
Keith Thomas | LRB | 3 June 2010
Quirkily captivating account of author's note-taking habits, and those of scholars for centuries before him, with digressions on marginalia, taxonomies, clippings. Ne'er a word about the internet
Alain de Botton | City Journal | Spring 2010
We overload our minds. Not only the internet. Modern world an unending hunt for new works of culture, new knowledge, new experience. Everything blurs. Try putting your mind on a diet
David Leonhardt | NYT Magazine | 31 May 2010
When an event is difficult to imagine, we tend to underestimate its likelihood: hence subprime crisis, BP blowout. When it's easy to imagine, we over-react: hence security theatre after 9/11
Ellen Willis | NYRB | 1 January 1970
In memory of Dennis Hopper, NYRB pulls out its contemporary review of "Easy Rider". It admired the "mythic simplicity". Plus a fine reader's letter, and a review of "Alice's Restaurant"
Nancy Sherman | NYT Opiniator | 30 May 2010
Stoic philosophy essential part of any soldier's wartime survival kit, for maintaining self-control in terrible circumstances. But a different mindset is needed for re-entering everyday life
Roger Ebert I 29 May 2010
From James Dean's sidekick aged 19 to terrifying gas-sniffing pervert in Blue Velvet, he created characters we remember. The turning point though was that "little motorcycle picture".
Jim Carroll I Irish Times I 28 May 2010
Composer recalls taxi-driving past, musical collaborations. "He would come in, turn on the recording equipment, and record everything that happened in the room, some of which was music."
Matthew Bown | Artnet | 25 May 2010
Intricate argument that the high values placed on modern art are analogous to, and possibly a continuation of, the high values placed on religious relics in medieval times
Lance Esplund | Weekly Standard | 27 May 2010
Epic denunciation of Philadelphia's scheme to move Barnes Foundation art collection from perfect old suburban home to a new city-centre museum. Artistic values trashed, tourist trade triumphs
Roger Ebert | 25 May 2010
He doesn't like it. Any of it. "I don't know a whole lot about fashion, but I know something about taste, and these women spend much of the movie dressed in tacky, vulgar clothing"
Decca Aitkenhead | Guardian | 22 May 2010
Writer's charm fails him. Portrayed here as "paunchy, middle-aged figure with a crust of dried toothpaste around his mouth", and conversational style of a "home counties golf club bore"
Caitlin Moran | London Times | 21 May 2010
You may well think everything imaginable has been written about this singer, most of it not worth reading. Fear not. Here is an interview to stop you in your tracks
Anand Giridharadas | NYT | 21 May 2010
“So” is the latest filler word, succeeding “well,” “um,” “oh” and “like.” Probably popularised by techies. "It conveys an algorithmic certitude. It suggests that there is a right answer"
Charles McGrath | NYT Magazine | 17 May 2010
Captivating backgrounder, for fans of Larsson's Millennium trilogy. Author dies without will. Much feuding ensues. Father and brother get estate, partner holds unfinished novels
Michael Billington I The Guardian I 20 May 2010
Where is today's Brecht or Shaw? Tensions in Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, Islam, rise of militant secularism provide rich opportunities for theatre. Dramatists should engage.
Paul Mariani I First Things I 15 May 2010
Sympathetic profile of Michael J Astrue, head of US Social Security Administration, classical translator, poet. Selfless, serious public servant with day job to wither the soul. Verse reveals sensitivity and Swiftian wit.
Harry Mount I Daily Telegraph I 19 May 2010
Engaging lament for Oxford college's one-word exam question. Terrifying prospect for most, infinite room for genius or stupidity. AL Rowse won fellowship for essay on "Possessions". Author failed to impress on "Miracles".
Allen Green | Jack Of Kent | 18 May 2010
She was born to a rich French family in Burma, married a dull Briton, had a famous son: George Orwell. A little knowledge of the mother's background explains a lot about the son's life
Bruce Schneier | Schneier On Security | 13 May 2010
Worst-case scenarios encourage bad decision-making. They exaggerate the rare and unusual. They privilege possibilities over probabilities. They reflect and encourage fear
Philip Oltermann | Guardian | 15 May 2010
German writer, contemporary of Grass, Habermas. Interesting throughout. On denazification: "You had to get rid of them, and a certain violence was necessary to clear up the mess"
John Allen Paulos | NYT Magazine | 10 May 2010
Public policy relies heavily on testing, scoring, counting. But numbers aren't absolute. By manipulating criteria, protocols, weights, you can get almost any outcome
Jamil Anderlini | FT | 11 May 2010
Celebrated classical composer convicted of fraud. Death sentence, commuted. Ex-securities regulator. Couldn't read music, paid others to write symphonies. Fantastic story
Philip Ball | New Scientist | 10 May 2010
No jaw-dropping conclusions, but lots of interesting detail about use and appreciation of music across cultures. Complex melodies perceived as sad, simple ones as happy
Abou Farman | Bidoun/Utne | May 2010
"Every time an actor turned his back, the dubbers, freed from any obligation to sync, would throw in some slangy insults: 'corpse washer', 'stinking vulture'. During gunfights there was always time for philosophizing"
Christopher Hitchens | Vanity Fair | June 2010
Extract from forthcoming memoir, mostly about literary London in the 1970s. Martin Amis, Kingley Amis, James Fenton, Clive James in main supporting roles. Walk-on part for Margaret Thatcher
Daisy Goodwin | London Times | 2 May 2010
Interview with Norman Stone, British historian celebrated for his smoking, drinking, womanising, Thatcherism. Hates EU, denies climate change, lives in Turkey, speaks 11 languages
John Michael Boling | Rhizome | 30 April 2010
A collection of images that repurpose traditional models of data visualization for humorous, bizarre or illuminating effect. I defy you not to find most of them funny. And besides, it's the weekend
Philip Hensher | Telegraph | 1 May 2010
Outstandingly vitriolic book review, even by Hensher's demanding standards. "Wagner was a genius, but also a fairly appalling human being. Cosima was just an appalling human being"
Jonathan Guthrie | FT | 30 April 2010
Advice that ancient Greek philosophers might offer to modern Greek crisis-managers. Short, clever, original, funny. What more can one ask?
Charles Forelle | WSJ | 30 April 2010
Banking crisis, plus volcanic eruption, plus EU entry talks, equals huge volumes of work for translators in Reykjavik. Lots of new vocabulary being improvised along the way. A CDO is a skuldabréfavafningur.
Mark Liberman | Language Log | 29 April 2010
A treat for language purists. What does the phrase "begging the question" mean, why is it so often misused, and is there another way of conveying the same meaning more easily?
Charlie Stross | Charlie's Diary | 28 April 2010
Science-fiction writer on his work-routine, income, prospects. "Here's the truth about the writing lifestyle: it sucks. It is an unstable occupation for self-employed middle-aged entrepreneurs"
Dante Ciampaglia | Forbes | 22 April 2010
Profile of New York Review Classics, said to be thriving by re-publishing overlooked, out-of-print classics in beautiful, robust, paperback format. Nice detail: buyers typically in late 20s, early 30s
John Gray | National Interest | 20 April 2010
Gray on Grayling. Model of a hostile review: vicious, funny, learned. "Industrial-style authorship of this kind is a triumph of the will rather than a display of intelligence"
Jan Swafford | Slate | 20 April 2010
Art and science of keyboard tuning. "There have been some 150 tuning systems put forth over the centuries, none of them pure. There is no perfection, only varying tastes in corruption"
Gideon Rachman | FT | 20 April 2010
"It began to occur to me that my gathering gloom might have less to do with missing my family and several appointments, than with the unfamiliar sensation of being thwarted. Wealth and privilege has made babies of us all"
Christopher Hitchens | Guardian | 17 April 2010
Brilliant throughout. Commentary on the text well worth reading: why is there no Lenin-pig? But the second half of the piece, history of the book immediately after publication, is the must-read
Walter Russell Mead | American Interest | 18 April 2010
Short list of great books from classical antiquity that have shaped our civilization. "Reading these books will make you a better reader of almost everything else that comes out of the western world"
William Vollmann | Vice | April 2010
Author gets makeover from Japanese cosmetologist who works mainly with cross-dressing men. Main trick is to disguise coarse male skin. Wig and lipstick do the rest. "After 60 it is very difficult"
David Hare | Guardian | 17 April 2010
Playwright argues in favour of imaginative works based on current events. Art restores mystery to life, whereas journalism seeks to strip it away. "The paradox of great factual work is that it restores wonder"
Haukur Magnússon | Reykjavík Grapevine | 14 April 2010
Long verbatim interview with composer Nico Muhly and Jónsi of Sigur rós, about their collaboration on Jónsi's most recent album. Much profanity, also much wisdom, delight, insight into how artists work
Jon Lackman | Slate | 14 April 2010
"Kabuki" serves as journalists' cliché connoting meaningless ritual. This short, interesting history of the genre, and its reputation in the West, shows why usage is wrong
John Steele Gordon | NYT | 7 April 2010
Action-packed review of Dominic Lieven's new book on 1812 campaign. Great disaster for Napoleon was not so much the loss of men, who could easily be replaced, as the loss of horses, which could not
John Allen Paulos | NYRB | 8 April 2010
Review of Masha Gessen's biography of Grigory Perelman, eccentric Russian maths genius who solved Poincaré conjecture then fled world acclaim, preferring to live quietly with mother in St Petersburg
David Boaz | Reason | 6 April 2010
Conservatives and libertarians who claim early years of American independence as golden age of liberty can only do so by ignoring slavery. Grotesque mis-statement of historical record
Roger Lathbury | New York | 4 April 2010
Sweet and sad story of a small-press publisher who won J.D. Salinger's approval to re-publish the writer's last novella—then found the approval withdrawn as the book was going to press
Kevin Kelly | The Technium | 6 April 2010
Film industries prosper in China, India, Nigeria, though piracy is rampant. Studios keep costs of legitimate films down close to those of pirated ones; and audience pays for comfort of cinema
Christian Lorentzen et al | n+1 | 6 April 2010
Strangely brilliant. Beyond McSweeney's. Rewriting of the 9/11 report in the form of an index, compressing data about principal characters and so making motivations more comprehensible
Glen Whitman | Cato | 5 April 2010
Soft paternalism—Sunstein, Thaler et al—grows out of behavioural economics. Claims to help people make better choices for themselves. It's OK in moderation, But beware slippery slope.
Scott Adams | 5 April 2010
A parable for the ages, from the creator of Dilbert. "Suppose humans were born with magical buttons on their foreheads. When someone else pushes your button, it makes you very happy"
Will Davies | Potlatch | 20 March 2010
Dazzling display of intellectual pyrotechnics, slightly tongue in cheek, illuminating Foucault almost as much as it does "Mad Men"
Nassim Nicholas Taleb | 1 April 2010
Draft of new section written for updated paperback edition of "Black Swan". Starts awkwardly, then relaxes into sparking discussion of what we can learn from nature about robust and fragile systems (PDF)
Alex Bellos | Guardian | 31 March 2010
Brazilian tribe, Munduruku, counts only to five, and even then not very reliably. How this can be, and what it tells us about the place of numbers in the human consciousness. Wonderful journalism—and not an April fool
Robert McCrum | Guardian | 29 March 2010
Lingua franca of the third millenium will be mutant version of English, simplified and stripped of Anglo-American cultural baggage. English + Internet = Globish
John Holbo | Crooked Timber | 29 March 2010
Short and very sweet piece of political modelling explaining why bipartisanship is not necessarily a good strategy even for bipartisans
Roz Morris | Nail Your Novel | 25 March 2010
Eye-opening analysis of how "The Hurt Locker" moves its story forward by raising and then frustrating audience expectations. But don't read it until after you've seen the film
Seth Abramovitch | Movie Line | 23 March 2010
“Any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of shit.” Leaked Mamet memo gives golden rules on writing for television—and is pretty compelling reading in its own right
Art.view | Economist | 24 March 2010
Marcel Duchamp bought a urinal, called it a work of art, authorised 12 reproductions. Unauthorised reproductions now reaching market. "Someone might be taking the piss"
Jeremy Sheldon | Granta Magazine | 25 March 2010
Case for screenwriting as literature. Coen brothers score highly: "He is the Dude. His rumpled look and relaxed manner suggest a man in whom casualness runs deep"
Tom Carson | Barnes & Noble Review | 24 March 2010
Model of how to write a negative review that's worth reading: in this case, of a book about Germany by a writer who has never lived there, doesn't speak language, doesn't seem to have met any Germans