A vastly entertaining and meticulously documented narrative detailing the fear and loathing behind the Bush-bashing bumper sticker from a couple years back: "I never thought I'd miss Nixon..." Why do the most advanced, "enhanced" ebooks already seem prehistoric? Nixonland accomplishes the crudest integration of prose with CBS news footage, so Perlstein's roaring descriptions of Kennedy-Nixon debates lets you click on the actual clip and watch the sweat drip from the fabled Milhaus brow. At the same time, it suggest all kinds of new … [Read more...]

From the Telegraph, August 25: "Last year was a bumper year for fantastically elaborate, large crop formations - 70 or so, many within spitting distance of the Barge and one taking three nights to fully emerge - and in early August this year, more than 45 had been reported. And, remarkably, in June the scientific journal, Nature, ran a piece on them.." Related articles by ZemantaScientists Struggle to Explain Crop Circles (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)Google Images: UFO and Desert Crop Circle (grantlawrence.blogspot.com)What You Did Not Know … [Read more...]

Image via WikipediaWhat I meant when I called Inception "the Citizen Kane of video games," in a good way: The problem with comparing Inception to a video game, which is pretty unavoidable, is that even people who should know better are conditioned to assume said comparison is pejorative. It isn't if I'm the guy making it, at least not in this case. It's not just that the movie's imaginary realms are designed to resemble video-game levels; the links among them and the surprises in each are involving--not just as a puzzle to solve, but … [Read more...]

Image by Lilly via FlickrHistory prances around in CARTOGRAPHIES OF TIME: A HISTORY OF THE TIMELINE, by Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton. If visuals had a beat, you could dance to this stuff. Search title on Google images for examples.Flowing Data reviewFine Books & CollectionsBookforum review Related articles by ZemantaInfographic(s) of the Day: How We've Mapped Time Through the Ages (fastcompany.com)Seeing the art in cartography (flowingdata.com)Timelines: Sources from History (bl.uk)Coffeebreak Cartography #6 - Quick mapping for a … [Read more...]

Image via WikipediaJulian Bell closes his NYRB Richard Hamilton piece with "In spite of their contrived sophistication my paintings are, for me, curiously ingenuous (like Marilyn Monroe)." From the new MIT Press book.(Right: Adam and Eve)Related articles by ZemantaJust What is It That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? (quazen.com)Sontag's Media List: NYRB, The Times, Penthouse (observer.com) … [Read more...]

author interview A Conversation with Arthur PhillipsArthur Phillips is interviewed by Tim Riley, the author of several books on rock history, including Tell Me Why: A Beatles Commentary and Fever: How Rock 'n' Roll Transformed Gender in America. Riley edits the Riley Rock Index. Tim Riley: The Song Is You tells the story of two music-obsessed people at different ends of the music industry, and how music steers and inflects their obsession with each other. It starts with a live Billie Holiday recording of … [Read more...]

Hans Zimmer via last.fm INCEPTION delivers on its premise's wild leap of faith. Yet like so many blockbusters, visuals trump narrative: after abandoning your toddlers for fifty year-weekend with your wife, would you (Leonard Dicaprio) leave them out on the back porch without hugging them to say goodbye, even if a four-eyed lawyer was poking papers in your chest? If your forsaken son was a wild-eyed dream architect, lost in his illusions, would you (Michael Caine) implant your best student (Ellen Page) in his psyche? While enjoyable as the … [Read more...]

Image via WikipediaMy tweets didn't get much rise, but I still was shocked at some of the language used in NPR's Saturday story about whether Wikileaks editor, Julian Assange, practices "journalism.""I've shied away from the term 'whistle-blower' because that has a kind of, you know, halo around the term," says New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller. "But they are an advocacy organization. They have a point of view, and an ideology and they have a modus operandi, which consists of getting information wherever they can, and making it … [Read more...]