If book publishing is a horse race, this fall we’re being treated to a Nobel trifecta. In September, we have Slow Man (Viking), a bag of tricks from the newest laureate, J.M. Coetzee (b. 1940); in October, Memories of My Melancholy Whores (Knopf), a typically sonorous title from Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928); and in Read More
If book publishing is a horse race, this fall we’re being treated to a Nobel trifecta. In September, we have Slow Man (Viking), a bag of tricks from the newest laureate, J.M. Coetzee (b. 1940); in October, Memories of My Melancholy Whores (Knopf), a typically sonorous title from Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928); and in Read More
It started out amusing, in a way, but now it’s getting ugly—the little-noticed battle over The New York Times’ Shakespeare coverage.
Earlier this month, invocations of creationism and Holocaust denial were injected into the debate by no less an authority than Harvard’s Stephen Greenblatt, author of the best-seller Will in the World. On Sept. 4, Read More
It started out amusing, in a way, but now it’s getting ugly—the little-noticed battle over The New York Times’ Shakespeare coverage.
Earlier this month, invocations of creationism and Holocaust denial were injected into the debate by no less an authority than Harvard’s Stephen Greenblatt, author of the best-seller Will in the World. On Sept. 4, Read More
What does it mean that our culture entertains two conflicting narratives of Marilyn Monroe’s death? Two conflicting versions of the Marilyn Monroe myth, actually. Suicide blonde, driven to take her life by the fevers of sexual hypocrisy, by the drugs she used to numb the pain of being a victim of Power, of Hollywood, of Read More
Despite what it said on the candidate’s schedule, it was the wrong Anthony who greeted Shakespeare in the Park fans in Central Park.
Moments later, the real Anthony popped up with the Zionist Organization of America’s Morton Klein outside the midtown office of The Arab Bank to denounce the bank’s ties Read More
Think of this week’s column as a play list for the overeducated, the media-saturated, the culturally jaded: things you may have missed, things you ought not miss, things you still can see and hear. Things “arts journalists” have not covered. Cultural news for those people who, unlike your correspondent, have a life. Not having one Read More
I must say that I’ve never appreciated movie stars who treat theater as a form of charity work. They sacrifice too much for me.
“So why knock yourself out?” The Times asked Denzel Washington about his role as Brutus in Julius Caesar on Broadway. “It’s obviously not for the money.”
“It’s like a long love Read More
The signs are there. Maybe it’s too early, but I’d suggest we’re on the verge of a new aesthetic dispensation, a tendency I’d call “The Return of the Singular.” That’s what I’m calling it, anyway. And, no, not just the “single” as in popular songs, but in literature, in film, in criticism, in thinking about Read More
The disappointing new musical Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, adapted from the 1988 movie about two con men in the South of France, left me cold, I’m afraid. On the other hand, everyone was roaring with laughter around me at some of the worst gags in history, and they weren’t apologetic about that.
Permit me to be Read More
