Monthly Archives: November 2002

Die Another Day

As ever in a Bond film, the Americans get it wrong, and it’s left to the Queen’s loyal subjects to make things right. And in Die Another Day, the latest installment in the greatest moviemaking franchise of all time, the … Continue reading

Posted in Film | 2 Comments

Gay Talese in the New Yorker

This week’s issue of the New Yorker is an excellent reminder of why it is the best magazine in the world. Who else would commission the great Michael Sowa to do a Thanksgiving cover illustration? (Talking of the cover, I … Continue reading

Posted in Culture, Media | 1 Comment

Personal November 26: Montevideo-Falklands

I’m on the ship! It’s great. Big ports, big boats, black oil on your hands, real people, really real people, gritty town, hot weather, bumpy seas. It’s real and it’s great. Bought four cheap watches in Cambridge before leaving: two … Continue reading

Posted in Rhian in Antarctica | 22 Comments

Eliot Spitzer vs Sandy Weill

New York’s attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, stood up in front of a Wall Street crowd last week to give a 20-minute speech. He started with a joke: he was glad he’d been invited, because he really wanted to put faces … Continue reading

Posted in Finance | 4 Comments

Femme Fatale

Femme Fatale, the new film from Brian De Palma, opens with the heist of a bra. This bra is not particularly good at doing the sort of things bras are normally expected to do – support the breasts, shield one’s … Continue reading

Posted in Film | 1 Comment

The Fourth Sister

Over the weekend, I went to see a fantastic new play, which is running at the Vineyard Theatre on 15th Street: The Fourth Sister, by Janusz Glowacki. Full disclosure: I’m a friend of the translator, Eva Nagorski, and I went … Continue reading

Posted in Culture | 9 Comments

Decasia

Old celluloid decays in a spectacular manner. Ricky Jay and Rosamond Purcell have just published a fine book on what happens to old dice (they start cracking up, quite literally, and quite beautifully), and Bill Morrison has made a film, … Continue reading

Posted in Film | 3 Comments

Bill Viola’s Going Forth By Day

You wait years for a major piece of contemporary non-secular art to blow you away, and then two come along at once… Back in New York after my trip to San Francisco to see Saint François d’Assise, I accompanied a … Continue reading

Posted in Culture | 7 Comments

Why the Republicans won the election

I’ve avoided blogging these midterm elections because (a) I’m not nearly as much of a US political junkie as thousands of other webloggers out there; and (b) I was just too depressed at the result. But this is my website, … Continue reading

Posted in Politics | 5 Comments

Roger Dodger

We open on a conversation taking place between fellow workers in a restaurant, all seated around a table. One of them is on a riff, going into impressive amounts of detail with regard to a thesis he has regarding sex. … Continue reading

Posted in Film | 2 Comments

Krugman, Lewis and greed: an exchange

Although the entries on this website don’t get nearly as many comments as those of other bloggers, I do occasionally get an intelligent note in response to something I write. Such was the case yesterday evening, when Matthew Rose responded … Continue reading

Posted in Finance | 3 Comments