The Year in Briefest Review: Four Picks
This long strange year yielded some gems....
Arts & Letters
The Dubious Joys of Bad Movies
“Why,” I asked my husband, “would anyone want to waste time watching a bad movie?”
“Because it’s fun,” he replied, as though this should be obvious.
“No. A good movie is fun, even if it is wrenching. A bad movie is just sad. Pathetic, even. An insult…
The Most Haunting, Nagging, Maddening Exchange from Jonathan Franzen’s “The Corrections”
Few of us as Americans believe honestly that we are equal in democracy. We only believe that it is better to believe so, rather than do so through policy and programs that will result in strife and arguments. Equality, or as de Tocqueville expressed it, the quality of being “almost the same,” exists mostly in our collective imagination. But if it does not reside, there it might not live anywhere at all.
It Is Not You, Patti Smith, but Clearly Me
Sometimes we come across news reports so sad, photographs so jarring, or art and speech so moving, that we know we should, could, or might cry or scream in response. But we cannot. Instead, we cry or scream because we know we cannot, or will not, cry or scream. On some level, this means that Patti Smith has penetrated my soul despite assertions to the contrary. Perhaps that is what makes her “punk.”
Fredrik Backman Foils the Critics (and Me)
He understands “the impossible human experience of just trying to get through the day with everyone you love being somewhat OK at the end of it.”
Anatomical Specimens Share a Scone
Wanting answers, we create reductions: I am. She was. The administration will.
The Rise, Fall, and Uneasy Redemption of the Hit King
Kostya Kennedy’s Pete Rose is a tour de force display of journalism, top-flight writing, and excellent research. It is rich in biographical details, yet it is not meant to be a biography in the typical sense, a comprehensive cradle-to-grave account of a life. The book is more of an exploration of Pete Rose as a celebrity athlete, his rise, his fall, and how he has managed both, or how managing his failures hinges entirely on how well he can throw around the weight of his accomplishments.
The Second Life of African Art in Western Preserves
Heritage is collective, aesthetic, and performative. It is something you inherit. Whereas history, on the other hand, is authored, linear, personal. It is something you produce. Museums often allow Africans the former but not the latter. Our art is heritage; European art is history. Our works are culture; theirs are achievements.
Record an Audiobook? It Sounded So Easy….
There is one blissfully egocentric, thrilling moment: I am introduced as “the talent.” Granted, I ruin the moment by snorting and warning the sound studio team that I have never recorded anything before, let alone an entire audiobook. They nod; they are already braced for an amateur. “The talent”…
The Civil War as America’s Second Chance
At Trenton and Independence Hall, Lincoln wondered at the willingness of our patriotic ancestors to imperil their lives for a nation that did not yet and perhaps would never exist.