“It seems that, even in the proliferation of new forms of writing and communication before us, the essay has become a talisman of our times. What is behind our attraction to it? Is it the essay’s therapeutic properties? Because it brings miniature joys to its writer and its reader?” Chisty Wampole suggests a different explanation.
Tag: 05.26.13
Kristin Scott Thomas Has To ‘Turn on A Bitch Switch’ (At Last?)
“It’s nice to be asked to do something with the underworld and not in a country house or to sit weeping in my kitchen.”
Surprising Winners At The Cannes Film Festival
“Perhaps the biggest surprise of the night was the best director award doing to 34-year-old Mexican director Amat Escalante, whose ‘Heli’ unnerved many with scenes of torture involving a flambéed penis and a strangled puppy.”
Huge St. Petersburg Choir Aims To Break A Record
“The 4,335 singers of all ages and from nearly all of the city’s professional and amateur choirs sang from the steps of St. Isaac’s Cathedral before thousands of spectators under an intermittent rain.”
‘Mary Tyler Moore’ Still Inspiring, More Than 40 Years On
“One of the early and lone champions of the show at CBS was Ethel Winant. She was the only woman in the sort of executive ranks, and so there was an executive bathroom, but there was only one. … So she would leave her high heels outside the door so that men knew she was in there, because there was no lock on the door either.”
What Should Happen To Penn Station? (Not Precisely What’s Recommended)
“This is an open invitation to a back-room deal and to wholesale compromise of the sort that has made what should be a showcase gateway for the city into a blight and a safety hazard. What the city deserves is a new, safer, up-to-the-minute station and the next Madison Square Garden.”
Morris Renek, 88, Who Devoted His Life To Writing Hard-Boiled Novels
“‘He was respected but not easily published, admired but impoverished,’ Mr. Elman wrote. ‘His works are not sufficiently appreciated; he’s a serious popular novelist who lacks a popular audience.'”
Why Rational People Buy Into Conspiracy Theories
“‘The best predictor of belief in a conspiracy theory is belief in other conspiracy theories,’ says [researcher] Viren Swami … Psychologists say that’s because a conspiracy theory isn’t so much a response to a single event as it is an expression of an overarching worldview.”