Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

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This issue sponsored by Columbia University Press

This week on nybooks.com: Translating Leopardi, marriage equality at the Supreme Court, gas leaks under Manhattan, genocide on trial in Guatemala, Spring Breakers and Girls, and a celebration of National Poetry Month, starting with the work of W.H. Auden. Plus: Robert Darnton announces the launch of the Digital Public Library of America.
Supreme Court Marriage Equality: Not Now, But Soon? David Cole “When did it become unconstitutional,” Justice Antonin Scalia asked during last week’s oral arguments, “to exclude homosexual couples from marriage?” At some point in the not too distant future, it seems likely that the answer will be: “When the Supreme Court announced that it was.” The year of that decision, however, may not be 2013.
Global Warming The Methane Beneath Our Feet Bill McKibben Underneath Manhattan, Con Ed’s 4,320-mile network of pipes is corroded, full of holes, and spewing methane into the atmosphere. Though it has received little attention, methane, the primary component of natural gas, is second only to carbon dioxide on the list of greenhouse gases that are inducing climate change.
Translation In the Wilds of Leopardi Tim Parks I’m starting a translation, my first for many years, and at once I’m faced with the fatal, all-determining decision: What voice do I translate this in?
Human Rights Guatemala’s Genocide on Trial Aryeh Neier Criminal trials of former heads of government are no longer very unusual. Between 1990 and 2009, there were some 67 such prosecutions worldwide for human rights abuses or corruption. Yet the prosecution of General Efraín Ríos Montt in Guatemala stands out in at least one respect. For the first time, a former head of state is being tried for genocide in the courts of his own country.					On Screen ‘Girls’ Gone Wild J. Hoberman I’m not alone in sensing a kinship between Harmony Korine and Lena Dunham—or Spring Breakers and Girls. Two prodigies, Korine and Dunham both grew up in bohemian milieus, the children of artists. But their real connection lies in their programmatic use of the nubile body. The female form is their canvas.
					In Style 50th Anniversary T-Shirt Celebrate fifty years of The New York Review of Books with this limited edition t-shirt. This fitted, black, baby rib tee has a scooped neckline and tapered fit with short sleeves. It is made from super-soft, 5.8-ounce, 100 percent combed ring-spun cotton.
National Poetry Month W.H. Auden To celebrate National Poetry Month, throughout April we will be posting work by poets and critics whose work in the Review has spanned a period of years or decades. We begin with a limerick by Auden:   The Marquis de Sade and Genet Are most highly thought of to-day;    But torture and treachery    Are not my sort of lechery, So I’ve given my copies away.
Knowledge The National Digital Public Library Is Launched! Robert Darnton For all its futuristic technology, the DPLA harkens back to the eighteenth century. What could be more utopian than a project to make the cultural heritage of humanity available to all humans? What could be more pragmatic than the designing of a system to link up millions of megabytes and deliver them to readers in the form of easily accessible texts?
Art In The First Place… A multilayered dance installation film developed from a 15th-century Italian pastoral romance.		Opera La Gazzetta This production is probably the American premiere of the sole comic opera Rossini wrote for Naples.		Conversation Renata Adler and David Shields The author of Speedboat and Pitch Dark talks at the Strand Bookstore.		More Events Don Share reads poems by Miguel Hernández at the Poets House, Riccardo Muti conducts Bach’s B-minor Mass, a new production of Proof in Chicago, Tiepolo in Udine, screenings of Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, Nathaniel Rich in conversation with Slavoj Žižek, Proust at the Morgan Library, ancient Persia at the Sackler Gallery, and more in our calendar.