
June 4, 2016
The deepest, lovingest public wit of the age

January 3, 2016
An American Classic: “Fat City”
An Open Source experiment here: Chris Lydon kindly handed off the hosting reins to me for a day, for an interview with Leonard Gardner, author...| More

November 25, 2015
Colm Tóibín’s Working on his Sentences
This is provincial Ireland, a place of long winters but not freezing winters. There’s drizzle as much as there’s rain. You’re trying to find a...| More

March 26, 2015
Michael Lewis’s Age of Money
Michael Lewis is the great tale-spinner in the Second Gilded Age in America. He’s part muckraker, but part Mark Twain, too, for finding classic characters...| More

March 6, 2015
Ganzeer in America: Get the joke? Can...
The Egyptian graffiti genius known as Ganzeer is working on our turf now. I am presuming to welcome him as an artist of radical humanism....| More

November 24, 2014
In Memoriam: Richard Eder, The Exemplary Reader
The beloved Richard Eder had the gift he admired in John Updike and that that sparkled in his own prize-winning book reviews: he “snored” metaphors...| More

October 9, 2014
Risa Puno: “Please Enable Cookies”
Last weekend, in one of Brooklyn’s hippest neighborhoods, DUMBO, interactive installation artist Risa Puno sold cookies at an unusual cost: your personal data. Want a homemade Pink Peppercorn Pistachio cookie? Try...| More

October 6, 2014
Sounding the Sea
Composers of classical music often put performance directions or notes throughout their scores. John Luther Adams, a composer known for expansive, landscape-themed music, includes only...| More

October 5, 2014
Report: The People’s Climate March
The march announced itself by force of numbers, and by its feel. No one seemed angry. This is not to say that the marchers had...| More

September 28, 2014
James vs. Roosevelt: Letters to the Crimson
Jackson Lears has dramatized the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and William James, but evidence of that conversation is actually hard to find. We turned up...| More