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Receipts
On my desk in front of me is a receipt from Supreme Hardware on West 73rd Street from 10:30 this morning for $8, which I spent on a 1/4″ masonry drillbit that I used to mount bookshelves in my...
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If Ordinary People Had the Same Resources as Celebrities
Another archived cartoon, which I’m going to blithely pass off as a sardonic critique of Katie Holmes’ new Elle cover: Share:FacebookEmailLinkedInTwitter
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Violence and Politics (and recursion)
Of all the elements of American Conservatism that I dislike and/or disrespect (and it’s a long list), the worst might be Conservatives’ self-bestowed role as arbiters of who can and who cannot...
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The Beatles’“Tomorrow Never Knows”: Why does this work?
So “The Beatles” (a business entity consisting of Sir Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison, George Martin, George Martin’s son Giles Martin* and a raft of attorneys and corporate...
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The Rules of Fiction: Fantasy Technology
In 1965, during the planning stages of Star Trek, creator Gene Roddenberry was concerned about how to portray planetary exploration on his new show — not because of the (projected) limited resources...
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The Makers and the Takers
If only one good thing comes out of the rhetorical cacophony surrounding this year’s election results, I hope it’s this: can we please, as a nation and as a society, reverse the inverted positions of...
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Pirates of the Imagination
I just get such a kick out of the Pirates trilogy (the Gore Verbinski movies; not the fool’s-gold fourth entry that I won’t even see). It’s such an aesthetic triumph; it’s such delightfully arty...
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The Message of All Eugene O’Neill
“There is one man — and only one! — who is so old, drunk, ruined, hopeless, self-destructive, sick, failed, and bitter (and yet who yet once had promise and potential to rival anyone whom you wish to...
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Yet Another Reason I Can’t Stand John Updike
Reading Michael Tomasky’s new piece on Obama in the February 7 New York Review of Books, I noticed what I assumed to be a particularly good David Levine caricature of John Boehner — and then I...
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Popes: Velásquez and Bacon
For obvious reasons I’ve been thinking about Papal authority (moral, philosophical, financial, political and spiritual) in the past few weeks. Andrew Sullivan is among the loudest voices in the chorus...
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How Long Ago
It’s strange to realize that you’re old enough to have seen the world change. The idea comes out of nowhere when you don’t expect it and aren’t looking for it but the frisson of recognition is always...
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Why Everyone Hates Anne Hathaway
Since the Oscars there have been dozens of articles I’ve noticed links to, and some I’ve skimmed or read, in different kinds of publications, about how “everyone” (or “EVERY WOMAN ON THE INTERNET”)...
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Not With a Bang
There’s a scene in Stephen King’s 1978 apocalyptic epic The Stand (in the 1990 extended edition, with the wonderful Berni Wrightson drawings and the lamentable Cyndi Lauper references) in which we are...
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There is No Moriarty
In 1893, Arthur Conan Doyle was done with Sherlock Holmes, the literary “consulting detective” he had created in 1886, whose appearances in two novels and 23 short stories had made Doyle wealthy and...
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Apparent Retrograde Motion
Rush Limbaugh is easy to dismiss (or rather, to not “take seriously,” since his statements are so exuberant and grandiose — so obviously geared to foment certain primitive emotions in his listeners),...
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