Episode Two of this season’s Mad Men could have been titled “For Love or Money.” On Valentine’s Day 1969, some of the folks at Sterling, Cooper & Partners are clearly doing their jobs just for the money. Others are doing their jobs for love of the job, or for love of someone on the job. Continue Reading »
Good feasting should be accompanied with good music. Continuing the celebration of the Easter Octave, here are a few recommendations: This day gradual-ly came on Easter Sunday: William Byrd (c. 1540–1623), Haec Dies Continue Reading »
One Hopkins is enough,” said the poet A. D. Hope. By this he meant: Enough with the oohs and ahs over beautiful creation, enough with the “arch-especial” and the “sweet especial,” enough with “all this juice and all this joy” and all the “froth and waterblowballs” and “ah! bright wings”—which allegedly are what we talk about when we talk about the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Continue Reading »
St. Francis of Assisi and the Western Tradition Friday–Saturday, April 25–26 New York, New York Another great April event from the Thomistic Institute: A series of lectures with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Francesca Murphy, Roger Scruton, R. R. Reno, Carol Zaleski, and Philip Zaleski. . . . . Continue Reading »
“Those institutions and reporters were never as good as their reputations. . . . It was largely—and this was true for decades—a small group of middle-aged, left-of-center, overweight men who decided how all of us should see politics and governance.”Jim VandeHei, co-founder of Politico, was opining about the annoying nostalgia that still persists in DC regarding the older generation of journalists. In Mark Leibovichs’ book, ThisTown, VandeHei’s Politico has an ambivalent presence in the Reality Distortion Culture of DC. “Speed, information, gossip, and buzz” VandeHei celebrates as the journalistic premiums of the “New World Order,” and Politico has set the standard on all these fronts, becoming a kind of political ESPN meets TMZ in the Beltway, and its star contributor, Mike Allen, This Town’s Hedda Hopper. Continue Reading »
The seventh and final season of AMC’s Mad Men premiered last night to a viewership quite different from the one that greeted the series’s 2007 debut. The inflection point came last season—when, improbably, this slow-moving character-driven period piece began to stir its partisans . . . . Continue Reading »
I have noticed a consistent plot in the fantasy/science fiction genre over the last several years. Surely, you have noticed it too. In film after film, the human race is depicted as villainous for supposedly destroying the earth. The just-released Noah is the latest example. In the Genesis account, . . . . Continue Reading »
There is a block in Brooklyn where it storms every day—twice a day, on Sundays. It’s been storming since January, and it’ll last till May—and then the storm will spread out all over New York. On one side of the street, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Angus Jackson’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Some aren’t cheering my governor’s brand of liberalism. Some even oppose his efforts to increase access to abortion. Shocking. His diagnosis: “Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are . . . . Continue Reading »
Through a Screen Darkly: Popular Culture, Public Diplomacy, and America’s Image Abroadby martha baylesyale, 336 pages, $30During the Cold War the United States government made important attempts to manage America’s image in the world. Besides the radio stations—Voice of America and . . . . Continue Reading »
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