2009 Archive (12 found)
Open
November 27, 2009 | The Barnes & Noble Review
Before reading a single page of Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open, I determined to evaluate it according to the standards established in a lovely little essay called “How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart,” by David Foster Wallace. Austin was a tennis star in the 1970s whose memoir Wallace, an exuberant observer of the game, agreed to …
Eating Animals
November 16, 2009 | Christian Science Monitor
The birth of his first child posed a painful quandary for novelist Jonathan Safran Foer: Would he serve turkey at his son’s first Thanksgiving? In “Eating Animals,” a work of nonfiction, Foer (author of “Everything is Illuminated” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close”) confesses to a lifelong ambivalence toward eating meat. Yet he cherishes memories …
A Life of Contempt
November 14, 2009 | Washington Monthly
I began counting Ayn Rand’s uses of the word “contempt” on page 43 of The Fountainhead, by which point it had already appeared four times, and twice on that very page. The word shows up thirty-nine times more in the book, by my count, for a total of two score and three. Rand’s villains and …
No Impact Man
September 21, 2009 | The Barnes & Noble Review
In this companion volume to the documentary film and popular blog, writer Colin Beavan chronicles a year spent making “as little environmental impact as possible” while living and working in New York City. The rules are: no elevators, subways, planes, cars, consumer purchases, plastics, paper goods, electricity, or non-local food; also, he must plant trees …
Empire of Illusion
July 27, 2009 | The Barnes & Noble Review
In this short, grim, fiercely argued book, journalist Chris Hedges explains that we are doomed. He catalogues in essay-length chapters four examples of what he calls modern America’s “moral nihilism”: its fawning celebrity culture, sadistic pornography industry, insipidly vocational universities, and pervasive corporate influence. Hedges concludes with a wake-up call for a society that, he …
By His Own Rules
July 6, 2009 | The Barnes & Noble Review
Few will be surprised to learn that Donald Rumsfeld’s signature wrestling move was a body slam. His preferred version, euphemistically called the “fireman’s carry,” is neither subtle nor delicate, a creature more of the Rowdy Roddy Piper school of bruising than the staid and honorable Greco-Roman tradition. Throughout his successful wrestling career in high school, …
Radical Streak
May 1, 2009 | Washington Monthly
Leonard Bernstein took a lot of flak for his antics on the podium. Patrons of the New York Philharmonic at mid-century were either delighted or appalled to catch a glimpse of the “Lenny leap,” an uncouth maneuver that found the enthusiastic maestro a good foot in the air before a momentous downbeat. A newspaper critic complained …
The Foie Gras Wars
April 30, 2009 | The Barnes & Noble Review
If a single dish could be said to embody the very pinnacle of man’s decadence, vanity, and moral ruin, it would be Pâté de foie gras de Strasbourg. This French specialty is made of a whole goose liver — unnaturally fattened to many times its normal size through force-feedings — wrapped in veal, the tender …
The Philosopher and the Wolf
April 21, 2009 | The Barnes & Noble Review
What distinguishes friendship between two people from friendship between a human and an animal? There are the drinking games, of course. And human friends also offer each other more complex reciprocal qualities (humor, shared experience, perspective) than humans and animals do (patience, dependability, loyalty). But more than that, admiration seems to be a subtly important …
They Fought the Law: Fred Strebeigh’s Equal
April 8, 2009 | The Nation
An outstanding history of women’s struggle for equality through the courts and in the legal profession. A colleague of mine recently argued an important civil rights case before the Supreme Court. In the hectic days before she left for Washington, as she reread every relevant decision and practiced clearing her throat, her attention was diverted …
Hunting Eichmann
April 1, 2009 | San Francisco Chronicle
How a Band of Survivors and a Young Spy Agency Chased Down the World’s Most Notorious Nazi Never underestimate the stupidity of criminals. Even war criminals. After Adolf Eichmann, the bureaucratic overseer of the Final Solution, escaped from Europe after World War II, he settled down in a Buenos Aires neighborhood that was known to …
Straight Away
March 1, 2009 | The Nation
Don’t ask, don’t tell is on its way out, and not a moment too soon. One of the ugliest moments of the 2008 presidential campaign involved a room full of people booing a gay general. During the Republican CNN/YouTube debate in November 2007, retired Brigadier General Keith Kerr asked a question by video. In a …