Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Friday, 4 April 2014


Weekend reading: The Review’s new issue brings Oliver Sacks on the mental life of plants, worms, and other organisms, Helen Epstein on a challenge to Uganda’s dictator, and Elaine Blair on adultery and fiction. On the blogs Toni Bentley reviews an exhibition about ballerinas and boxers, David Cole exposes the flawed reasoning behind the Supreme Court’s campaign finance decision, and Martin Filler looks at the glorious vaulted ceilings of Guastavino.

THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY THE MIT PRESS

Oliver Sacks
Although neurons may differ in shape and size, they are essentially the same from the most primitive animal life to the most advanced. It is their number and organization that differ: we have a hundred billion nerve cells, while a jellyfish has a thousand.
 
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Helen Epstein
I first met General Sejusa in October 2013, in a chain restaurant on the outskirts of a British university town. The story he told me would defy belief, if much of it weren’t confirmed by contemporary news reports and interviews with other Ugandan political observers.
 
Elaine Blair
It has become a commonplace that adultery is a low-stakes subject for a contemporary novel set in a sexually egalitarian, divorce-friendly American society where most people marry with a fair amount of sexual and romantic experience. A contemporary case of adultery seems like a small story.
 
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Toni Bentley
As a former ballet dancer I have never liked photographs of my profession that are blurred, time-lapsed. I understand the implied whirring speed of the action, the decision to emphasize the transitory nature of the art, but it is too frequently sentimental, focusing on the chiffon wrappings while avoiding the body of steel inside.
 
David Cole
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has once again vindicated the rights of the rich and mighty to spend as much as they want on political campaigns. American democracy may be predicated on a guarantee of one person, one vote. But these days the system seems to be closer to one dollar, one vote.
 
Martin Filler
Time and again in old New York buildings, it’s a delight to lift up your eyes and unexpectedly find distinctive herringbone terracotta tile patterns overhead—the ingenious structural creations of the long-overlooked master builder Rafael Guastavino and his firm.
 
April 6, LouisvilleA theatrical reading of I.J. Schwartz’s epic poem
 
April 9, NYU: Writers and critics reconsider William H. Gass’s exploration of the color blue