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Saturday, May 27, 2023

The Art Of Being Informed Post-Twitter - Gulag Archipelago

Like every human endeavor, literature is subject to snobbery. We’re all snotty about something, whether colleges or cocktails. Take poetry, starting with formalists versus free versers. 

Poets, readers and critics partial to various schools often agree to look down their sophisticated noses atlight verse. After all, poetry is a serious business and shouldn’t be left in the hands of lightweight amateurs. 


The Art Of Being Informed Post-Twitter

Until the past year’s insipid Musk-related shenanigans, the platform functioned as an efficient information delivery system that made it unique among its social media rivals — and unique, for that matter, among the media organs that depended on it for readers and ideas. - N+1


 ‘The Gulag Archipelago’: An Epic of True Evil Published 50 years ago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s account of the Soviet Union’s barbaric system of forced labor camps is arguably the 20th century’s greatest work of nonfiction.



Articles of Note

As a young man, Adam Kirsch didn't turn to George Michael and Madonna to learn about sex and sin? He turned to opera... more »


New Books

“The problem of the world is this,” Orwell said shortly before he died. “Can we get men to behave decently to each other if they no longer believe in God?”... more »


Essays & Opinions

Art critics seem less and less interested in art and more and more interested in money. Consider the triumph of Kehinde Wiley... more »


May 19, 2023

Articles of Note

In 1928, two German mathematicians proposed the “decision problem”. Then a 23-year old graduate student in England started working on it... more »


New Books

Elias Canetti was a scholar, but not an academic. He wasn’t a novelist or poet, though he wrote that way. He was many writers at once... more »


Essays & Opinions

You’ve had to deal with the sulkiness of others. Indeed, you might be a sulker yourself. But what is sulking, exactly?... more »


May 18, 2023

Articles of Note

Dear Thought Criminals." Where do canceled, almost-canceled, and aspiring-to-be-canceled academics and artists hang out? Pamela Paresky's parties... more »


New Books

Bruno Schulz's stories defy description, explication, paraphrase. And his death  appalling and senseless  defies meaning... more »


Essays & Opinions

Parents of young children are rarely alone, and yet they report feeling lonely. How to explain? Donald Winnicott has some theories... more »


May 17, 2023

Articles of Note

"If you go to the right, you lose your life, and if you go to the left, you lose your conscience.” The Gulag Archipelago at 50... more »


New Books

No nepo babies and no assholes — in the corny, cheerful world of Tom Hanks, moviemaking is earnest, joyous, well-compensated work... more »


Essays & Opinions

The culture industry has gotten very good at reflecting back our taste to us. Art is boring now because we are boring... more »


May 16, 2023

Articles of Note

The daguerreotype craze began in 1839. A few silvery inches of a stranger's face gave new meaning to the idea of love at first sight... more »


New Books

The American idea of continental philosophersas speculative, irrational mystics dates to the 1953 International Congress of Philosophy, in Brussels... more »


Essays & Opinions

An extreme figure even in decadent fin-de-siècle Paris, Jean Lorrain was a dandy, Satanist, drinker of ether, and highly paid writer... more »


May 15, 2023

Articles of Note

For 30 years, Douglas Rushkoff was a believer in the digital revolution. No more. The Gen X techno-optimist is now a middle-aged Marxist... more »


New Books

Shakespeare's body of work is complex and confounding; so is the task of tracking down his biography. Who was he? Who cares?... more »


Essays & Opinions

“Whereas algorithms present personalized recommendations by rank, the blurb is a one-rank system of aesthetic value: utterly awesome”  ... more »