The Job Of An Editor Is To Edit, And Here’s How Ian Buruma Missed It By A Mile

No, Mr. Buruma, it wasn’t that you “blew up” on Twitter when angry readers of your New York Times Review of Books found an essay by an accused – though acquitted – sexual abuser headlining the magazine. It wasn’t even your flippant interview with Slate that sealed your fate. It was the lack of editing. “Accuracy aside, the piece Buruma found so ‘interesting’ is, actually, unbearably trite. As a literary personal essay, it is a failure, written in abstract and bland language, drowning under the weight of vague therapeutic bromides.”

Tennessee Williams, Painter

Once the playwright started to really make it, he bought a house in Key West, and – along with writing plays – he painted. “Throughout the 1970s, tourists walked past the house, where he sold paintings — sometimes not yet dry — over his fence. More than once, he arrived at a dinner with a fresh canvas under his arm as a gift.”

NYT Dance Critic Alastair Macaulay To Retire

For some time now, Alastair — who celebrated 40 years of reviewing this May — has wanted to spend more time in Britain, his home country; scale back on his daily reviewing responsibilities; and work on a variety of projects, including teaching and lecturing at Juilliard, the 92 Street Y and City Center, and a research fellowship with the Center for Ballet and the Arts.

China Bans Foreign TV During Prime Time

“According to a new set of draft rules released Thursday, Beijing regulators will outlaw the broadcast of foreign TV shows during prime time and limit the volume of imported content that streams on China’s fast-growing video platforms. As justification for the rules, regulators cited the ‘protection of social stability’ and the need to guard against content that ‘deviates from core socialist values.'”