Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

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This week on nybooks.com: David Cole on sensible gun reform, Anna Somers Cocks on sinking Venice, Jonathan Galassi on Calvino’s letters, Aryeh Neier on justice in Guatemala,Daniel Barenboim on Wagner and the Jews, Charles Simic on growing old, Alma Guillermoprieto on chavismo in crisis, Martin Filler on Sri Lankan architecture, Daniel Mendelsohn on dreaming of cemeteries, Tim Parks on translating Leopardi, and Amy Knighton playing Moscow’s game in Syria.
The Coming Death of Venice? Anna Somers Cocks Venice is being eaten up by damp. Every inch of sea level rise counts now, because the water has overtopped the impermeable stone bases of most buildings and is being absorbed into the porous bricks. The damp has reached the upper floors and is rusting through the iron tie rods that hold the houses together. An overarching body, with real power, is desperately needed to save the city.
Facing the Real Gun Problem David Cole Reducing gun violence is a moral imperative. But if any meaningful reform is to be achieved, it must be done in league with, not in opposition to, many of those who own guns and feel strongly about their right to do so.
The Dreams of Italo Calvino Jonathan Galassi He complained to a friend in 1970 about “working in fits and starts, fragmentarily” while dreaming “of composing encyclopaedic works, universal histories, theogonies, maps of the terraqueous globe and of the firmament, utopias…”—the very beguiling confections, half potted science or philosophy and half fantasy, that are the glories of Cosmicomics and Invisible Cities. These fictions are examples of what for Calvino became “the only kind of literature that is possible today: a literature that is both critical and creative.”
Guatemala: Will Justice Be Done? Aryeh Neier In countries such as Argentina and Chile, there have been more than one hundred prosecutions and convictions for human rights abuses under military regimes. Prison sentences have been imposed on officers responsible for abuses, as well as on former heads of state. The only country in Latin America for which it would be appropriate to use the word “genocide” to describe the crimes committed since World War II, when that term was coined, is Guatemala.					Wagner and the Jews Daniel Barenboim I find it important to do away with certain misunderstandings and false claims about Wagner precisely because perceptions of him are often so confused and controversial. Here I also want to discuss extramusical sides of Wagner’s personality, and among these are of course his notorious and unacceptable anti-Semitic statements.
					IN THE JUNE 20 ISSUE Joyce Carol Oateson Derek Raymond, Edward Mendelson on Anthony Hecht,Ferdinand Mounton Christian Caryl, Robert Gottliebon Clive Davis, Aileen Kelly on Isaiah Berlin, William Gass on M.H. Abrams, Zoë Heller on Janet Malcolm, Willibald Sauerländer on Brueghel, Christopher Browning on the Holocaust, and more.
Looking It in the Face Charles Simic Of course, I never really believed it would happen. Grow old, I mean. I knew it was coming, saw the evidence of it in my friends and relatives, but despite that, I acted as if aging had nothing to do with me.
Chavismo: The Crack Up Alma Guillermoprieto Sometime in the three months since Hugo Chávez was pronounced dead, his favorite television mouthpiece, a broadcaster called Mario Silva, delivered himself of a riveting aria: fifty-three minutes in which he told of coup plots, death threats, and power struggles within the heart of chavismo.
The Cemetery Dream Daniel Mendelsohn When the dream begins it is morning and I am pleasantly aware—with the complete, unquestioning awareness that it is possible to have in a dream, born fully-grown from our sleeping brains like a character in a myth—that I am going to the cemetery to visit the graves of my relatives as I used to do years before, when I was a child.
Under Sri Lanka’s Big Roof Martin Filler From 1958 to 1966 Ulrik Plesner was the chief architectural partner of Geoffrey Bawa, who has become a cult figure to those who believe that the lessons of the Modern Movement should be more sensitively adapted to indigenous cultural traditions.
Playing Moscow’s Game Amy Knight As usual, the Russian government is playing a tough game with the US and its Western allies over Syria, with the revelations in late May that it plans to deliver advanced S300 anti-aircraft missiles to the Assad regime, along with a reported ten new MiG fighter planes. Why is the Kremlin getting away with this?				Echoes from the Gloom Tim Parks Fifteen years of diary entries. From 1817 to 1832. Some just a couple of lines. Some maybe a thousand words. At a rhythm ranging from two or three a day to one a month, or even less frequent. Suddenly, translating Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone, it occurs to me that if it were written today, it would most likely be a blog.
A Worldwide Reading for Li Bifeng An appeal in support of the imprisoned writer by Liao Yiwu, Ai Weiwei, Ha Jin, Herta Müller, and Salman Rushdie.(Worldwide)		‘Student’ A Crime and Punishment set in corrupt present-day Kazakhstan. “The precision of the filmmaking is worthy of Robert Bresson,” writesJ. Hoberman. (Anthology Film Archives)		Albrecht Dürer Andrew Butterfield calls this “the most comprehensive and revelatory show about Dürer to be held in America in over forty years.”(National Gallery)		Philosophy as a Humanist Discipline A free conference, open to all, to mark the 50th anniversary of The New York Review of Booksand to honour the lives, work, and legacy ofIsaiah Berlin, Stuart Hampshire and Bernard Williams. (Wadham College, Oxford)