I. Follies and Foibles Finding fresh metaphors for Knickerbocker managerial incompetence requires a stretch. Celebrity coaches and general managers like Larry Brown, Donnie Walsh, Isaiah Thomas, and Don Nelson have become distant memories, nearly absorbed into the long history of franchise ineptitude that Red Holzman’s great teams made everyone forget, and to which Pat Riley’s … Read more

In early January, the Delegate Assembly of the Modern Language Association Convention—perhaps the largest and most influential academic gathering in the humanities—passed, 60-53, a resolution urging its members to “contest” restrictions on the freedom of travel for American students and faculty members of Palestinian descent to universities in the West Bank. Another resolution, urging solidarity … Read more

Meltzer sent this piece, written a couple years back, in response to First‘s Call for remembrances of Amiri Baraka. It ends with a reflection on Baraka’s music writing. You’ll find that excerpt in our Baraka tribute. But the rest of this piece is echt Meltzer as well so here’s the whole enchilada. Since the release … Read more

Liars and Lorine Niedecker By Aram Saroyan Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis. W. W. Norton. 2011. 213 pps. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis. W. W. Norton. 2010. 270 pps. Liar’s Poker: Rising through the Wreckage on Wall Street by Michael Lewis. W. W. Norton. 1989. … Read more

Dead, you’re the critics’ darling. When I was a teen, you were mine. Each morning I lifted The Velvet Underground and Nico from its sleeve, watched it spin, waited for Sunday Morning’s opening notes to warm me like a junk rush. Bursting with things to say but needing someone else’s words, I wore your face … Read more

It is reliably said that during Isaiah Berlin’s youth his pampering mother used to rouse him from sleep with the question, “What are we going to do today?” To which the answer was: “Nothing.” Perhaps Marie Berlin became the nicest kind of Stalin in his subconscious.[1] In the depths of the Stalinist night, around midnight … Read more

Any one who wishes to become a good writer should endeavor, before he allows himself to be tempted by more showy qualities, to be direct, simple, brief, vigorous, and lucid. H. W. Fowler, Dictionary of Modern English Usage In a New York Times Book Review earlier this year I read two pieces printed on following … Read more