The battle of the book: the research library today
by Eric Ormsby
The second in a series titled “The survival of culture.”
Features
The new anti-Americanism
by Roger Kimball
On the fashionable current of anti-American sentiment & Empire, by Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri.
The critic as poet: Empson’s contradictions
by Paul Dean
A consideration of William Empson upon the publication of The Complete Poems of William Empson, edited by John Haffenden.
Poems
Most popular
Theater
Loveless renderings
by Mark Steyn
On Mother Clap’s Molly House, by Mark Ravenhill; Urinetown: the Musical, by Mark Hollman & Greg Kotis; Snatches by Laura Strausfield; Peggy Sue Got Married, by Bob Gaudio & Doing Justice, by Adina Taubman.
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Art
Clyfford Still: the importance of being earnest
by Daniel Kunitz
A review of “Clyfford Still: Paintings 1944-1960,” at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Exhibition note
by Roger Kimball
On “Czech Cubism, 1912-1916,” at the Rupertinum, Salzburg.
Architecture
More & more Mies
by Mildred F. Schmertz
On “Mies in Berlin,” at the Museum of Modern Art & “Mies in America,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
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Music
What Westminster wrought
by Jay Nordlinger
On the recently reissued Westminster Recordings.
Salzburg 2001: Mortier’s last stand
by Patrick J. Smith
On the tenth, and last, Salzburg festival directed of Gerard Mortier.
Opera note
by David Mermelstein
On Der Kaiser von Atlantis, by Viktor Ullmann, at the Cincinnati May Festival.
The media
Bring back the duel!
by James Bowman
On the decorum of accusations of bad faith in politics.
out of interstitials
Books
A fable for our time
by Stephen Schwartz
A review of The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Albigensians, by Stephen O’Shea; The Cathars, by Malcolm Barber; The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars 1290 – 1329, by René Weiss & The Other God, by Yuri Stoyanov.
Ideas as anecdotes
by Mark Bauerlein
A review of The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand.
Past divertissement
by Ben Downing
A review of The Lyttleton Hart-Davis Letters: A selection, edited by Roger Hudson & The Marsh Marlowe Letters, edited by Brown Craig Brown.
Our spiritual legacy
by Hilton Kramer
A review of Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward a Revival of Higher Education, by Jeffrey Hart.
Notebook
Philosophers as radicals
by Charles Griswold Jr.
A professor looks back on his radicalized youth.
Notes & Comments
America’s wake-up call
by The Editors