Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

New this week on nybooks.com: A rare close-up look at Yemen’s Houthi movement, an insomniac’s reading, a selection of readings on technology and computers, and a poem to inaugurate National Poetry Month. Plus selected events in music, art, film, and literature. THIS ISSUE SPONSORED BY UCONN

Yemen: The Houthi Enigma Robert F. Worth Yemen has become the latest proxy battleground in the sectarian struggle now playing out across the Middle East. It did not have to be this way. ADVERTISEMENT A Book in the Darkness Charles Simic One of the compensations of being an insomniac in a snowbound house full of books is that I can always find something to read and distract myself from whatever mood I’m in. It’s Alive! A selection of articles from the Reviewarchives by Jennifer Schuessler, John R. Searle, Edward Rothstein, and Paul Goodman on computers, technology, and the history of mechanical life. ADVERTISEMENT What Breaks First Jynne Dilling Martin As the iceberg shears off the submarine      periscope, the noise is less groan, more wild animal shriek.     “Trust me,” said the captain piloting toward gunfire to see what the Russians     are up to these days. The sea ice resembles a cracked white lung     steadily swelling… CONVERSATION On April 9 Colm Tóibín andRoy Foster will discuss their new books, both set in Ireland, at Columbia’s Heyman Center for the Humanities. Fintan O'Toole will serve as moderator. MUSIC LoftOpera presentsDonizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, about a scheming femme fatale. Set in 16th-century Venice palazzos, it will be performed here in a Bushwick studio. ART Georgia O’Keeffe was not the only painter drawn to New Mexico’s rugged landscape and rich blend of cultures, as a remarkable exhibition reveals. FILM The Devil Is a Woman,Joseph von Sternberg’s last film with Marlene Dietrich, is one of his mosterotically obsessive and visually opulent.