literary pretensions
Reading: Sudhir Ventakesh, Off the Books
With a finite amount of time before Contracts starts, I decided my next read is going to be Sudhir Ventakesh’s Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor. Ventakesh was a colleague of Steve Levitt’s (Freakonomics) whom I’ve discussed here and here. Levitt and Dubner discussed Ventakesh’s work with Chicago gangs at length [...]
Su Blackwell, Book Cut Sculptures
Amazing work. Su Blackwell, Book Cut Images
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New York Review of Books, Allison Lurie on Alice Munro, Jeffrey Sachs on the viability of Economic Aid
New York Review of Books has two articles this month of particular interest - The Lamp in the Mausoleum and How Aid Can Work, in response to Aid: Can It Work?. Comments after the jump.
Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut
via BoingBoing, I found this glorious post from the Nonist, Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut. Read More….
On Language, Learning American
With an eye towards Bill Safire’s eventual retirement from the NY Times, apparently he’s just on vacation, the paper seems to be having try outs for the “On Language” column. Marion McKeone’s Learning American gets my vote if only for the line “an Irishman on a dance floor resembles nothing so much as an [...]
Peep of Day
This is my latest acquisition. Let me read to you a favorite passage.
“How easy would it be to hurt your poor little body.
If it were to fall into the fire, it would be burned up. If hot water were to fall upon it, it would be scalded. If it were to fall into deep [...]
Stanley Kunitz, Poet Laureate, dies at 100
The poet Stanley Kunitz has died at a ripe old age. Great poet. Remarkable human being.
About his own work, Kunitz has said: “The poem comes in the form of a blessing—‘like rapture breaking on the mind,’ as I tried to phrase it in my youth. Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.” [poets.org]
New Yorker, The Perfect Mark investigates psychology behind Nigerian 419 Fraud
Each week I get about 2 or 3 e-mails from Africans who claim to have access to millions of dollars but need a westerner to help them transfer the money out of the country in return for a cut of the proceeds. It’s one of the most prevalent forms of spam I get and it’s [...]
Bill Buford goes whole hog into Tuscan cuisine
Bill Buford has written one of the best articles I’ve ever read for this month’s New Yorker - Carnal Knowledge: How I Became a Tuscan Butcher. Part personal journey borne of a desire to commiserate with the reality of our grocery-store fed lives, part travelogue of rural Tuscany, it’s a masterpiece.
America’s Ambivalence toward International Law
Nixon the environmentalist. Reagan an early mover to counteract ozone depletion. America’s invasion of Hawaii. It’s remarkable how a little time paves over the details in our perception of history. Brian Urquhart reviews of three recent books on international law, focusing on America’s ambivalence towards the rule of law and national autonomy.
Link: New York Review [...]