June 2013

James Salter speaking at Tulane University, New Orleans, 2010 From London Review of Books: It isn’t Salter’s language alone that numbers him among the masters, but it is what strikes you first. From Light Years of 1975: ‘On the stands in nearby orchards were hard, yellow apples filled with...

The problem with fame, or any unanimous praise, is twofold: 1. You are saying exactly what everyone is ready to hear and you are doing exactly what everyone is ready to see. There is almost no tension between yes-no. Ready not ready.

William Pope.L is famous for (among other things) carrying a business card that identifies him as “The Friendliest Black Artist in America.” It’s a clever gag because it makes itself true, in a way, every time it draws people closer. The card must be especially useful when Pope.L does...

From music video “Big City Nights” for Da Funk, by Daft Punk, 1995. Directed by Spike Jonze by Enrique Lima It is nearly impossible for popular music to represent history. The historiographic imagination is beyond it, I think. Linearity, plot, and telos are too important to the telling of...

I have just now fallen upon a darling literary curiosity. It is a little book, a manuscript compilation, and the compiler sent it to me with the request that I say whether I think it ought to be published or not. I said, Yes; but as I slowly grow...

by Rauan Klassnik (written while watching Nancy Grace and her live coverage on CNN just before and after the Murder One verdict came down). I am not talking here about Jodi Arias’ obvious penchant for blood (or the way blood was splashed all over that bathroom and hallway as...

The 1695 frontispiece to the manuscript pages which, in 1697, were to become the first edition of Perrault’s Histoires ou Contes du temps passé. On the door, behind the old woman telling the tales, is written “Contes de ma mère l’Oye”, Tales of Mother Goose, a subtitle which was...

Turkey is living through remarkable days which will be long remembered. Many thousands of people have taken to the streets of Istanbul, Ankara and other big cities, braving the teargas liberally sprayed by riot-police. Their cause: the future of Turkish politics and society.

Impressions from Serbia, Dragan Papić – Dr. Agan by Keith Doubt The Politics of Exile, by Elizabeth Dauphinee, Routledge, 224 pp. The subject of Elizabeth Dauphinee’s The Politics of Exile is a man who committed a war crime in Bosnia. Being a war criminal does not define who the man is, but...

Baz Luhrmann adapts Fitzgerald and the result is pretty much as you might expect. There are no surprises here. You have a continual sense that you have seen this film before. That is largely because you have – if, that is, you happened to chance upon any of Luhrmann’s...