And Pioneering the Concert of the Future Is . . . ABBA??
What really triggered this project? For four decades, ABBA steadily refused to re-form, even when offered $1 billion in cash.
Dispatches
Julia: Portrait of a Life Lived Well
Screenshot from the trailer for ‘Julia,’ Sony Pictures The new documentary Julia works to explain why Julia Child still matters culturally, both as the first TV-chef icon and as a feminist who paved the way in two sexist fields: professional cooking and media. The film is directed…
There Is More Than One Way to Live a Beautiful Life
We love to personalize. We have our initials embroidered on towels that will fade and thin in a year. The idea of clothing custom-tailored to our bodies—unaffordably, by a human, or now, with computerized manufacturing—thrills us. So why not make our lives our own?
Gratitude Comes Hard to Us
It makes sense that here, in the land of self-improvement, we should grant gratitude its own (albeit politically confused, deceptive, and tainted) holiday. But I suspect we also need Thanksgiving because we are so bad at it.
Let Me Give You My Money: New Beatles Doc About to Drop
Still from ‘The Beatles: Get Back,’ Disney+ I was in high school when Star Trek: The Motion Picture premiered. It was the first Star Trek film, and the first fix for fans since the TV show had ended a decade before. I was never much of a fan…
From Sugar to Shit
Casinos used to buy direct mail lists that identified people with “unquenchable appetites for all forms of gambling.” Now, some manage to buy data for the ATMs on site, and all have computerized loyalty cards that show just when and for how long each customer plays, how much they bet, what times of day they visit, how often they hit that Spin or Deal button.
A Long and Rambling Letter to My Dead Mother
Growing up, I felt wretchedly sorry for you. Widowed young, with an eight-month-old baby and no work you loved. Years as a secretary, flattering bosses and cleaning up their messes for chump change. But you left at five on the dot and never looked back, never brought work home except to tell funny stories, and then we played and talked.
‘Unstuck in Time’: New Vonnegut Documentary is Moving But Distracted
IFC Films has released a new documentary on Kurt Vonnegut, co-directed by Robert Weide, who in the process of filming Vonnegut over decades created a close relationship with the writer. The film traces this connection, even as it shows Weide’s failure to make his original conception of the documentary—for 40 years.
The Little General and the Art of Losing
Gene Mauch taught me something about the pain and inevitability of losing, the harshness of fate, the indifference of the gods to your pleas. Sometimes losing can have a bigger impact on you than winning.
The Dubious Sport of Wife Carrying
Wife-carrying leaves me with mixed emotions. It sounds prehistoric, conjuring images of flickering firelight and women slung over one shoulder, screaming. But carrying one’s new wife over a threshold? Something primal, locked deep inside me, still thrills to those images.