Bob Dylan is shown here doing his famous Bette Davis impression, to the obvious delight of Allen Ginsberg and obvious despair of aging boytoy Peter Orlovsky. The photo illustrates an extract in the New Yorker from Chapter 2 of Sean Wilentz’s upcoming doorstop/blockbuster Bob Dylan in America. I was never a Dylan guy at all,…
Why it pays to read the obits
Way, way back in the day, in 1967, in fact, I heard Pauline Kael speak at Oberlin College. Discoursing on pop culture versus “high” culture, she opined that pop culture offered delights unavailable on Mt. Helicon. Dating herself just a bit, she gave as an example Frank Sinatra singing “Bim Bam Baby.” Flash forward 43…
“Tristanotomia”
Pianist Agnar Mar Magnusson plays an original composition “Tristanotomia” dedicated to legendary piano player and composer Lenny Tristano. Ben Street on bass and Bill Stewart on drums. Recorded on the Reykjavik jazz festival 2008.
New at Bright Lights: Sex & More Sex
Well, that’s what it is, pretty much, a long take on the Sex & the City TV series and a review of The Band Wagon, featuring the divinely sexy Cyd Charisse (and Fred Astaire, too). The full issue, as always, not entirely safe for work, here.
It’s not what you know, it’s whom you knew at Harvard
Via Ben Smith at Politico, Ira Stoll, at The Future of Capitalism, reviews Christine Ward’s Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street’s Bluff and explains how hedge fund manager William Ackman shook the Municipal Bond Insurance Association’s money tree with a little assistance from Marty Peretz, Eliot Spitzer, and Barney Frank. Money…
Michelle Obama, diva-ish if not diva-esque
A lot of people are whining, moaning, or otherwise slapping our beloved first lady around about her decision to celebrate her husband’s 49th birthday by, well, leaving the country to party with four score well-chosen chums at a five-star resort in sunny Spain and, not so incidentally, hang with European royalty. So, do the Obamas…
Monk — “Caravan”
Megan McArdle advocates death panels
Death panels of one, to be precise. Here’s her entire post on the subject: I’m probably going to have a lot of thoughts about this Atul Gawande piece on hospice care [in the New Yorker], but here’s a slightly off the wall question: how much better off are patients now that doctors don’t lie to…
Brad DeLong, Professor of Economics and Censorship
I’m a huge fan of Brad DeLong’s “Grasping Reality with Both Hands” blog. Like Brad, I’m a pro-stimulus Krugmanite (or at least “Krugmanite-ish”) with a special interest in economic history, particularly the whole “European Miracle” thing. Unfortunately, I part company with Brad on global warming. My position is, yeah, it’s getting warmer, and it’s definitely…
Suffering white Christians, suffering at Harvard
Ross Douthat, whom I in the past have unkindly—and even perhaps unjustly—referred to as Ross Dumb Fuck—is at it again, bemoaning the suffering of white Christians, citing a study by Princeton sociologists, Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford for support. According to Ross, Espenshade and Radford provide “statistical confirmation for what alumni of highly selective…