The actor Will Smith got punished last week for speaking truth. On December 22nd, The Daily Record, a Scottish newspaper, published an interview with Smith in which he said “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘Let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and …
Ten best lists are thick on the ground now. Amidst the arcane little films that go into narrow release in December so critics can add them to their lists, you will find the name of one documentary popping up again and again: No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq. If success in art …
I miss Kurt Vonnegut. His way of poking sharp pins into social illusions produced such satisfying deflationary hisses. Now we are all puffed up, and who will let the hot air out? The other day I was standing in the checkout line at the drugstore. Suddenly, the woman in front of me began speaking loudly, …
A couple of weeks ago, I cleaned out my office. I don’t mean I neatened up, I mean I threw out half the papers and tchotchkes piled on every surface like so many snowdrifts. My innate aesthetic preferences are for order and harmony: I work better, feel better, breathe better under those conditions. But especially …
It’s that time of year again: piped-in Christmas carols and tinsel thick on the ground, toy marketing at fever pitch, when the good people at Thousand Kites record their annual “Calls from Home” special, broadcasting messages from families on the outside to loved ones locked up. (Read on to learn how to take part.) And …
Why are so many smart people convinced of so many stupid ideas? Last month, in a piece published in anticipation of his new memoir, the certifiably brilliant Nobel Prize-winner (for discovery of the double helix) James D. Watson was quoted in the Times of London as follows: He says that he is “inherently gloomy about …