Новости за 03.10.2017

There are worse things to get horribly, almost unthinkably wrong than the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. (The outcome of a presidential election, for one.) But there has definitely never been a worse time than 2016 to make bold predictions. That year, I published an article titled, “Who Will Win the 2016 Nobel Prize in Literature? Not Bob Dylan, that’s for sure.” The previous year, I published a version of that article with the subhead “If Bob Dylan wins, I will eat my copy of Blood on the Tracks.” Bob Dylan... Читать дальше...

In the video for “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” Tom Petty dresses up a dead woman, played by Kim Basinger, as his bride. It’s a pretty revolting video, but its also a reference to the stint that Petty did as a gravedigger in his youth. Strangely enough, Joe Strummer of the Clash and Dave Vanian of the Damned also worked as gravediggers. Rod Stewart is reputed to have dug graves in Highgate Cemetery (where Marx is buried) but in fact he just marked them out. “You didn’t have to look too sharp,” Tom Petty said about that particular job. Читать дальше...

For the past eight years, Barack Obama provided the National Rifle Association with the perfect liberal bogeyman—an avatar of white anxiety who wanted to deprive gun-toting Americans of their constitutional right to bear arms. Annual gun production skyrocketed 239 percent during his presidency, and the NRA saw its membership hit a record five million. Last year, the group bet big on Donald Trump, pouring $30 million into his campaign and millions more to stack Congress with gun-friendly lawmakers. Читать дальше...

On Monday, President Trump strode to a podium and delivered prepared remarks about an American tragedy. He said the federal government is working closely with local officials, and promised updates as the situation developed. He praised the professionalism and courage of first responders whose “miraculous speed” saved lives. He expressed sympathy for everyone suffering through “this very dark period.” He announced plans to visit the devastated community. Then he said a prayer for the victims, and... Читать дальше...

The term “classics” both refers to the study of the Greco-Roman world and summons the omnipotence of the word “classic.” A classic is a combination of the foundational, exceptional, and influential, something that, as Italo Calvino wrote, “has never finished saying what it has to say.” A classic is something that you have always experienced, in some other way, before you experience the classic itself. And a classic can often feel as if it has already been experienced for you. The wonder I experienced upon my first readings of Homer... Читать дальше...

In the windowless backroom kitchen of the Loisaida community and arts center in Lower Manhattan, Aris Mejías cradles a plastic ziplock with the last of the dark-roast coffee she brought back from her native Puerto Rico. “It’s probably extinct,” she says. “Ay Díos, I think I’m gonna cry.” Mejías’s eyes are red and sunken. Neither she nor Isabel Gandía has slept much since Hurricane Maria tore through the southeast Caribbean in late September. They’ve been too busy coordinating a donation drive to bring emergency aid to Puerto Rico. Читать дальше...

As stories of hunger, desperation, and death emerged from Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria last week, the salsa superstar Marc Anthony asked a favor of an old friend. Dr. Irwin Redlener, who is perhaps best known for founding the Children’s Health Fund alongside musician Paul Simon, is now the director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. And Anthony, who met Redlener in 1998 during Simon’s Broadway play The Capeman, wondered if the disaster response specialist... Читать дальше...