Why Washington DC Is A Difficult City

“Unlike the world’s other great capitals, we are not an exporter of ideas. People come to Washington to do their local business, to refashion the nation and the city to their own image. Ideas are imposed from the outside. Washington is intellectually passive about its sense of self. So many of the arguments we have here about city planning are about balancing the demands of people who don’t live here. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that.”

Classics, Lite (As In Shorter)

“Tolstoy, Dickens and Thackeray would not have agreed with the view that 40 per cent of Anna Karenina, David Copperfield and Vanity Fair are mere ‘padding’, but Orion Books believes that modern readers will welcome the shorter versions. The first six Compact Editions, billed as great reads ‘in half the time’, will go on sale next month, with plans for 50 to 100 more to follow.”

Paris To Get A New Concert Hall

Paris hasn’t yet had a great hall for orchestra concerts. But just before Jacques Chirac leaves office, “an eye-catching design for a $260 million concert hall by the French architect Jean Nouvel. The Philharmonie de Paris, as it will be called, is scheduled to open in the Parc de la Villette, in northeast Paris, in 2012.”

Picasso And Braque At The Movies

While almost every aspect of George Braque’s and Pablo Picasso’s lives “has been scrutinized — their friends, lovers, favorite drugs, hangouts, hat sizes and nicknames (Picasso called Braque Wilbourg, after Wilbur Wright) — one mutual fascination has been largely overlooked: Both men were crazy about the movies.”