While the British royal family may have closets full of tantalizing scandal and deceit, the “Royal Family of the Circus” continues to live up to its sterling reputation for perfection in the circus arts. Ah, the bore of the privileged life. Maybe fewer heads would have rolled through history, if the circus had been in … Read more
A very impressive first novel, Sebold’s The Lovely Bones deals with the grief, self-destruction, and eventual healing of a suburban family after daughter Susie is brutally raped and murdered. What saves the book from drowning in its grim premise is her deft choice of narrator—the murdered girl herself, who watches from the afterlife with sadness, … Read more
Now that Neal Pollack is past the indignity of being widely suspected to be Dave Eggers’s pseudonym, he’s been able to get down to the business of being his own pseudonym. As fans of his 2002 Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and his consistently funny weblog know, in “Neal Pollack,” the real Pollack has … Read more
Most of Jonathan Lethem’s early writing career consisted of science fiction novels that leaned toward the Philip K. Dick side of the genre—experimental, unorthodox and pounding on the door of literary respectability. When he finally got that door open, though, it was with a postmodern take on a different genre, Motherless Brooklyn, a detective noir … Read more
If the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons picked up a genie’s lamp with three wishes, he might turn himself into Richard Dawkins: Celebrity scientist, bestselling Oxford evolutionist and atheist, inventor of the concept of memes, close personal friend of author Douglas Adams and husband of an ex-Doctor Who actress. He is one highly evolved … Read more
It’s not like we sit around holding our breath waiting for whatever’s next from the desk of David Foster Wallace, but we do take notice. In a way, we’re gratified that it appears to be dense work of nonfiction dedicated to hard science—that way we won’t feel guilty about keeping our nose to the grindstone … Read more
“Is 911 a Joke?” [August] was not fair to Fire Chief Rocco Forte. He has been given a raw deal by both the governor and the city fathers and mothers. They cut his budget and told him to deal with it. He has done his best to keep suppression forces adequately staffed. There is much … Read more
I enjoyed reading your new column “Sex & the Married Man” [“Should Married Men Go to Strip Clubs?,” September]. I couldn’t agree more with you, and I’m tired of my fellow Gen X males pooh-poohing strip clubs as if they were interactive tours of livestock slaughterhouses. Sure, we all went to the Alan Alda School … Read more
A popular myth, perpetuated even in China, is that the Great Wall is the only man-made structure that can be seen from outer space or, some will say, seen from the moon [“Red-Handed,” Letters, September]. For an object to be visible from a distance, it needs both size and visual contrast with its surroundings. The … Read more
I read Frank Jossi’s piece on the golfing industry [“The Missing Links,” September] with particular interest in the “Youth Only” or “Youth With an Adult” facility at the National Sports Center in Blaine. That is what we were promised back in 1998 by proponents of the project. Yes, a “youth only facility,” which was to … Read more