The difference between threat and bluster is the power to back up one’s words. Of late, President Bush has had many loud words to say, and he accompanies them with the threat of force, which is certainly a form of power. But how powerful is his power-and, by extension, ours?
He is so short of Read More
“I am a social debutante, and I’m here looking for a lady caller,” said Kenan Thompson of Saturday Night Live, literally on tiptoes as he peered into a crowd of pretty girls. He was cornered next to the bar with some of his co-stars at the Winter Dance, a schmoozy nighttime benefit for the American Read More
The closest thing I have to a neighborhood multiplex is the Loews Orpheum on Third Avenue and 86th Street. It is there that I trudged off to see Hitch at an early-morning screening, simply because this lukewarmly reviewed comedy had soared to a $46 million opening-week box-office take, far outpacing other current releases and lingering Read More
In the past few months, Manhattan has been the giddy beneficiary of two major spectacles in the world of art: first, the recondite Gates installation in Central Park, and second, the unveiling of the Museum of Modern Art after a long renovation. While the former held my interest for as long as it took to Read More
It’s a shame that Karin Coonrod’s bold and brilliant new production of Coriolanus has been so misunderstood. The director stands virtually alone in refusing to talk down to Shakespeare (and therefore to audiences). She isn’t in the popularizing game. Nor, incidentally, was Shakespeare.
We can say confidently, at least, that Coriolanus is one of his Read More
Looking at the photograph of David Fertig in the catalog accompanying an exhibition of his paintings at James Graham and Sons, I was taken aback by how normal he appears to be. I don’t know what I was expecting, really. Given Mr. Fertig’s continuing series of pictures depicting the Napoleonic Wars-a subject that is, for Read More
On the audiotapes of George W. Bush recorded secretly by his erstwhile confidant Douglas Wead in 1999, the future President revealed how much he feared candid discussion of his personal use of marijuana and cocaine. As quoted in The New York Times, Mr. Bush vowed that no matter what rumors and facts circulated about what Read More
University presidents should be intellectual leaders, not just fund-raisers, cheerleaders and greeters, and Harvard University president Lawrence Summers has been a fine example during the three and a half years he’s held his post. But a speech he gave recently at a conference of economists, in which he questioned the “intrinsic aptitude” of women when Read More
“It would be so hard for me to wear a brand,” said Ken Tanabe, a 27-year-old designer with a slim build and friendly eyes. Like so many twentysomething Parsons grads/frustrated musicians/Williamsburg residents, Mr. Tanabe makes a living “making brands.” He’s designed logos for WorldCom and animated Web movies for MTV and MAC cosmetics.
But Mr. Read More
Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, by Judith Warner. Riverhead Books, 327 pages, $23.95.
When I first read Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, a week after giving birth to my first child, it registered as little more than a theoretical exercise. Being a parent was an intensely physical Read More
