Congratulations to Hank Rosenfeld, my friend and former colleague from Spy, who collaborated on The Wicked Wit of the West, which is a memoir-cum-biography of the great Hollywood screenwriter Irving Brecher, the author of two Marx Brothers movies (At the Circus and Go West), Meet Me in St. Louis, and Bye Bye Birdie!, and who …
Let us now praise Johnny Damon, the ballplayer’s ballplayer, the crucial man in last night’s 7-4 Yankee win. In the first, he doubled and scored; in the fifth, he doubled and drove in a run; and in the ninth, he won the game. With two out in a 4-4 game that the Phillies had just …
Mailer, Buckley, Hunter Thompson–with so many of the literary lions of the era having passed away, it’s always welcome when one of the survivors speaks. Gore Vidal has an interview on theatlantic.com, and it’s pure enjoyment. Not profound, but cranky, perverse, unkind, witty, charming; rather like listening to a very indiscreet grand signeur. Below, an …
Last night was a tale of two ballgames. After three innings, Cole Hamels was working on a no-hitter and Andy Pettitte had given up three runs and looked like the Bad Andy from years ago who occasionally showed up in a big game and exploded. But then Andy found his groove, A-Rod homered, Nick Swisher …
My long-developing article on CCTV in the UK and the growing surveillance state there has at long last been published by The Washington Monthly. One of the great pleasures of visiting London in January was meeting so many interesting people and hearing so many thoughtful ideas about my subject, and one of the pains of …
After Cliff Lee and Chase Utley got the World Series off to a memorable start for the Phillies on Wednesday, the Yankees evened things up with a crisp, methodical 3-1 victory last night. Like Game One, the game was well-pitched on both sides, and just as C.C. Sabathia was a smidge worse than Lee, the …
I loved the article in The New York Times the other day about the new ideas about the Battle of Agincourt, the mythic victory that the English under Henry V enjoyed over the French on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, in 1415, and that gave rise to Shakespeare‘s stirring “Band of Brothers” speech. “They devastated …
Game 5 was a wild, emotional affair. Consider: Five Angels batted and scored four runs before an out was recorded in the first; then the Yanks, stifled for six innings, erupted for six runs in the seventh, making me think the game was in the bag; but in the bottom of the seventh, Girardi made …
We spent an exciting and somewhat hectic weekend in beautiful Central New Jersey, where Cara was participating in the Equestrian Talent Search at Centenary College in Hackettstown (Just to be precise, the event was at Centenary’s Equestrian Center, which is actually in Long Valley. On Middle Valley Road in Long Valley. Atop a mountain on …
Ann Coulter, serial liar and firebug, has surfaced after some months of relative quietude with another of her typically overwrought and manifestly untrue provocations. Appearing yesterday on The Joy Behar Show, Coulter, aiming to counter the idea that President Obama might become vicitm of a right wing assassin, said, “Every presidential assassination or attempted presidential …