It’s touching how diligently pundits and politicians of the non-fact-based reality persuasion try to rewrite the record of George W. Bush. For example: Tea Party Nation head Judson Phillips “said that the death of Osama bin Laden happened in spite of President Obama.” (Right Wing Watch 5/2/11) “Bush’s persistence was palpable and set the tone for the intelligence community tasked with bringing bin Laden to justice. (Dan Balz, Washington Post 5/2/11)
To make such statements one must ignore the opportunity before 9/11. “The Bush administration now had in its hands what one participant called ‘the holy grail’ of a three-year quest by the U.S. government – a tool that could kill bin Laden within minutes of finding him. The CIA planned and practiced the operation. But...
The two empty chairs onstage at the PEN Children’s Committee panel, “Who Tells the Story? Children’s Book Writers Talk About Voice,” seemed to have been left there by accident, but unforeseen circumstances kept two participants from attending. Children’s Committee chair Susanna Reich fell victim to laryngitis, so her predecessor, Fran Manushkin, graciously welcomed the near-capacity crowd. Panel moderator Lisa von Drasek was also unable to attend because of an injury, and Jenny Brown did an admirable job of taking her place. She came with a list of thoughtful questions, tailored to each panelist, that elicited insightful responses.
Although I’m familiar with Gioconda Belli’s poetry, fiction, and acclaimed memoir of living in Nicaragua in the years before the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, The Country Under My...
Adam Gopnik non è riuscito a mantenere le ambiziose promesse che si potevano leggeresul foglio di presentazione di questo stimolante panel su come l’arrivo negli Stati Uniti possamodificare l’attività creativa di chi è cresciuto altrove.Ma d’altra parte chi sarebbe in grado di contenere e guidare l’esuberanza di Salman Rushdie, ben spalleggiato dalla vivace sudafricana Anne Landsman, e da un Eduardo...
The TWO WORLDS panel moderated by Adam Gopnik, was a mostly a paean to New York, and so took place in a perfect venue. It was a beautiful, if very warm, Sunday afternoon. Battery Park was spring green and filled with sightseers, there were sailboats on the water and the Statue of Liberty through an archway presided over it all. In the cool, elegant Museum of Jewish History, Anne Landsman from South Africa, Eduardo Lago from Spain, José Manuel Prieto from Cuba and Salman Rushdie from India joined together in agreeing that while they were mostly from these places, they had lived in others, and come to be New Yorkers by choice, by accident, or by need. And they had stayed on, why? They...
At the 92nd Street YM-YWHA on Friday, the novelist and essayist Shirley Hazzardengaged the novelist Richard Ford in a conversation about reading and writing that was so warm, and literate, and amusing, and inspiring that it provoked something I don’t often encounter at literary events: a standing ovation. At her entrance, Ms Hazzard supported herself with a cane, but as she limped nobly to her chair, she brought us into her fold. “Excuse me,” she said, turning our way before she was even seated. “I’ve got a game leg.” That is, she was bonding with her audience at 60 m.p.h., even before Mr. Ford—who walked out with the assured gait of Clint Eastwood—could get a word in edgewise. Now, Mr. Ford is...
Darryl Pinckney's brilliant essay on Elizabeth Hardwick in the current New York Review ofBooks whetted my appetite for Thursday night's "New York Stories" event at the Morgan Library. Here's a splendid passage from Pinckney: "What transfixed Hardwick about Renata Adler's Speedboat (1976) was her narrator's indifference to anything other than her own perceptions. Invovlement with a critical self suited the life of the single woman." I especially cherish the notion of a narrator's "indifference to anything other than her own perceptions." This might not be the governing aesthetic of the publishing industry at the moment, but it's a fine governing aesthetic for the serious novelist.
A huge crowd stormed the doors early at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday evening, eager to hear the megastar lineup (constellated by PEN World Voices and the New York Review of Books) talk about the global financial meltdown, the future, where we stand. Bill Bradley, Niall Ferguson, Paul Krugman, Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and Robin Wells.
As the economic crisis swirled in the background, some of the best economic thinkers/authors in the land sat together to answer the question of the day posed by moderator Jeff Madrick of The Cooper Union and The New School.
What is the state of the economy? Do we need to change policy? And what is the future…. And what will we learn on...
Charles Patterson will talk about his book "Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust" (ISBN 1-930051-99-9) on Wednesday, March 11. The Mid-Manhattan Library (NYPL) is located at 40th Street and Fifth Avenue. The talk begins at 6:30.
Eternal Treblinka (soon to be in 14 languages) shows the common roots of Nazi genocide and modern society's enslavement and slaughter of animals. The title comes from Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer, who wrote, "For the animals it is an eternal Treblinka."
The first part of the book describes the emergence of humans as the "master species" and how we came to dominate the earth and its other inhabitants. The second part examines the industrialization of slaughter of both animals and...
It’s hot. Very hot. Too hot to be walking the thirty or so blocks to SONY BMG where I have a meeting, and then the twenty or so blocks back and on another avenue where I am to meet a friend. It is the ultimate New York City summer day and I feel like I am about to pass out either from a general headiness from the many good things at present (professional, personal), the fact that I am fully in love and landed on that square without even trying or wanting, that I am giddy already and with reason, or perhaps it is just the oh-so-humid day, the sun beating down (beating down), and that no matter...
I must put forth dual images of myself and neither is correct. There is the perceived strong she-can-handle-anything me (not true) and the she’s-so-fragile me (not true) but never is there the strong yet vulnerable me that even Bob Dylan had met, not knowing me, but someone like me, who was a woman in every respect yet when she breaks, she breaks just like a little girl. I don’t know if there is any other way to break, quite frankly. Do you break like an adult and fake it and pretend everything is fine? Is there some organized way” of having a minor breakdown of which I missed the mass mailing and details because if there is,...
It is a lonely feeling to lose anyone - lovers, friends, family and in any way, however you lose someone is a death. To lose a mentor tho, how does one begin to express what this feels like?
Were it not for Steven T. Florio I would not be in book publishing or publishing in any way. I always knew I would be a writer, but I never for a minute believed I could succeed as a publisher, as an editor, editorial director, acquisitions editor, etc - the myriad jobs I have held so far in my career - and I never thought that I would see to publish my work with some fair measure...
