Overheard in a Classics precept (in discussion of sexual habits of men in ancient Rome)
Professor: They didn't have venereal disease. No, venereal disease is a gift of the New World... like potatoes, and maize.
Just when I thought the next show to open at an American museum could only be a survey of Tommy Hilfiger’s toenail clippers, this happens. Lucio Fontana has come back to Manhattan.
I am not with the times when it comes to television. Schadenfreude TV upsets me; I can’t watch it. You know what I’m talking about: the semi-scripted reality shows, the “true life” documentaries, the TV that makes you want to die. I know you remember the episode of ...
They say that to be a great writer, you have to kill your liver. Or, preferably, yourself. To paraphrase Tolstoy’s old saw: happiness is banal; misery, unique. But do you really have to feel at odds with the world to write?
When the U.S.S.R. collapsed, the world marveled at how quickly a superpower could unravel. But for Serguei Oushakine, all it took to knock down Communist Russia was a good book.
One day this July the heat was such that it was no longer fun to roam outside. So I interrupted my summer routine (walking the dog, eating profiteroles, thinking about what a chore it must have been for Lopokova to fuck Keynes) to sit and read something. I went to ...
Gene Robinson, the first openly-gay Episcopal bishop, came for a visit a few days ago. He led a service in the Chapel Sunday night, and lectured in McCosh the following afternoon. Posters went up advertising these events. I thought I’d go say hi. It’s a strange thing, meeting ...
This election ushers in not only a new administration, but a new political reality: kakistocracy, it seems, is not inevitable after all.
So: a month ago, J.K. Rowling decided to out Dumbledore in front of a booked-solid Carnegie Hall. The audience gasped, and then burst into applause. The real surprise, though, is not Dumbledore’s “homosexuality,” but the fact that there could be anything else to know about him. What could ...
This continues a series of interviews with the paper's founders conducted to mark thirty years of the Nass.