The foundering Greek government, in a state of disastrous financial decay, has begun referring victims of crime to the fascist Golden Dawn party for protection.
The Guardian reports on the experience of a civil servant who went to police with complaints about immigrant neighbors from Albania: Read More
Geometry is destiny, at least in the work of Peter Halley, whose Day-Glo prisons, cells and conduits have been familiar icons since the mid-’80s. Mr. Halley has proved to be reliably consistent, from his choice of acid-hued paints to his use of Roll-A-Tex, a gritty product that lends his work an architectural edge. At first glance, the artist’s airy studio at 526 West 26th Street, filled with rows of colorful paint containers surrounded by canvases in various stages (and dominated by a huge classical cast of Poseidon that Mr. Halley acquired from the Athens Museum), could be a day-care center for child prodigies. But Mr. Halley, 57, who recently stepped down as director of Graduate Studies in Painting at Yale, has an enviably stable midlife career. Read More
Of all the famous Marxist leaders, only Marx himself was afforded both a natural death and a dignified burial. His grave is in Highgate Cemetery in London, most of which is a creepy overgrown ruin of toppled marble angels and Gothic crypts. But Marx is in a nice corner of the graveyard where they still Read More
Has James Franco given up on America?
If so, he’s got some justification. He’s shown in highbrow gallery exhibitions, made soap opera appearances billed as performance art, published a collection of short stories, persued a Ph.D. in literature, done readings with the likes of Gary Shteyngart, and dressed up Read More
If, hypothetically, two young German lads were to hack into the computers of the world’s biggest pop stars – such as Lady Gaga, Justin Timberlake, and others – what would the next move be? If you said haughtily brag about it on the internet and set yourself up to be caught very easily, you would Read More
A funny thing happened during Granta’s B.E.A. panel on the state of American writing on Friday, when a woman from the audience asked Paul Auster whether it was his idea to turn Timbuktu, a novella he published in 1999, into a children’s book.
For a moment, Mr. Auster looked at the questioner blankly. Read More
In light of the news that Barack Obama will be appearing with Hillary Clinton in Unity, New Hampshire on Friday, it’s worth noting that Obama has already started borrowing from Clinton’s campaign rhetoric.
"Germany, a country as cloudy as the Pacific Northwest, is now a world leader in the solar power industry and Read More
At first glance, the cover of Susan Sontag’s final book—the almost-complete manuscript she left at her death in December 2004—seems antiseptic and ultra-modern, like an architectural photograph of the Düsseldorf School. Designed by Winterhouse, a small press run by her friend William Drenttel, it features a neutral vertical gray panel beside a photograph of Sontag’s Read More
In Oct. 2006, the Museum of Modern Art announced the creation of a new curatorial department to handle “media.” It concerns itself with all those visual and sound installations not intended for formal, theater-style viewing, like Doug Aitken’s new façade creeper, Sleepwalkers.
The man appointed as chief curator of this department is Klaus Biesenbach, 40, Read More
Diane Keaton graces the screen so rarely that when she makes an appearance of any kind, attention must be paid. But it’s a sure sign of how desperate the current state of movies has become when you pack up your hope and anticipation, head for a brand-new Diane Keaton vehicle called Because I Said So, Read More
