Month: June 2010
IS SEX OVER?
Camille Paglia certainly rocked the Times the other day: “The implication is that a new pill, despite its unforeseen side effects, is necessary to cure the sexual malaise that appears to have sunk over the country. But to what extent do these complaints about sexual apathy reflect a medical reality, and how much do they …
KRUGMAN: BAD MOON RISING
With cold, methodical clairvoyance, Paul Krugman has been chronicling our descent through subprime madness, into recession, into crisis, liquidity trap, and into the green shoots on the other side. He applauded Ben Bernanke‘s firmness and leadership in 2008, and warned very early in 2009 that the stimulus wasn’t large enough to do the job, that …
SCREENING HOLIDAY
Hands down, my favorite perk of being a writer has been screenings. Slipping out of the office, ensconced in plush private rooms with friendly publicists hovering nearly, seeing things before everyone else–pretty sweet. Yesterday I rewarded myself for a couple of weeks sustained good work by venturing into a broiling city for a double feature. …
WHAT DO DAUGHTERS WANT?
Recently my younger daughter, age 16, shared with her mother the following revelation. “I need new sneakers,’’ she said, “but not, you know, sneakers.’’ Confronted with this Delphic utterance, my wife, like a character in a Dan Brown novel, sought to penetrate this mystery by showing my daughter a website devoted to sneakers. “How about …
PEACOCKS: MEN AND CLOTHES
The topic of this article is supposed to be Why Men Don’t Like to Dress Up, but I’m having some difficulty with it, because the premise is obviously untrue. Men love to dress up. If you have any doubts, go to a football game—NFL, NCAA. Look in the stands. You’ll see tens of thousands of …
ROSENKRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN AND NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES. . .
In The Guardian today: “The playwright Sir Tom Stoppard spoke today of his fears that the “printed page” is in danger of being edged out in a `world of technology’. “I am aware, as everybody has to be, that there’s more competition for one’s attention nowadays,” he said. “The printed word is no longer as …
ROSENKRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN AND NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES. . . Read More »
US 2, SLOVENIA 2
No point crying in one’s beer, but like Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers, the US Soccer team was deprived not merely of an accomplishment, but of place in history. No team in World Cup history has come back to win after trailing by a 2-0 score, and yet the US would have done just …
A DAY AT THE RACES
One should always take the opportunity to associate oneself with the Marx Brothers. Yesterday Ginny and Cara and I went to Belmont Park in Queens for a day of races capped off by the Belmont Stakes. It was fetid afternoon in the metropolitan apple, but sitting in the lower grandstand, under the overhang, we enjoyed …
HEAR, HEAR!
Having indulged for the last couple of years an almost perverse interest in the health of liberty in Great Britain, I am happy to report that with the ascension of the new coalition government between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, democracy seems back on track in the green and pleasant land. This from a …