Archives for 2005

For reasons I can’t yet reveal, I just had occasion to draw up a list of my fifteen favorite American movies of the past seven years. I’ll share it with you when the time comes, but for the moment I’ve decided to post a teaser–the twenty runners-up.

In alphabetical order, they were:

About Schmidt

Being John Malkovich

The Cooler

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Garden State

Guinevere

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Lilo & Stitch

The Limey

Lovely and Amazing

Magnolia

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Pi

The Secret Lives of Dentists

Sideways

Sunshine State

The Tao of Steve

The Whole Nine Yards

Three Kings

Watch this space for the winners….

February 2004:

Without exception, my friends are puzzled by my more than occasional practice of reading biographies from back to front. It puzzles me, too, even though I’ve been doing it for years, and I can’t offer any explanation, however theoretical, for a habit that at first, second, and third glances makes no sense. All I can tell you is that for some reason not yet accessible to introspection, I often prefer to read about a person’s life in reverse chronological order, starting with his death and working backwards to his birth….

(If it’s new to you, read the whole thing here.)

February 2004:

Without exception, my friends are puzzled by my more than occasional practice of reading biographies from back to front. It puzzles me, too, even though I’ve been doing it for years, and I can’t offer any explanation, however theoretical, for a habit that at first, second, and third glances makes no sense. All I can tell you is that for some reason not yet accessible to introspection, I often prefer to read about a person’s life in reverse chronological order, starting with his death and working backwards to his birth….

(If it’s new to you, read the whole thing here.)

– Price of the first oil painting ever sold by Milton Avery, purchased by the violinist Louis Kaufman in 1926: $25

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $264.16

(Source: Louis Kaufman, A Fiddler’s Tale )

– Price of the first oil painting ever sold by Milton Avery, purchased by the violinist Louis Kaufman in 1926: $25

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $264.16

(Source: Louis Kaufman, A Fiddler’s Tale )

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth–

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth–

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?–

If design govern in a thing so small.

Robert Frost, “Design” (courtesy of Rick Brookhiser)

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth

Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth–

Assorted characters of death and blight

Mixed ready to begin the morning right,

Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth–

A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,

And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,

The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?

What brought the kindred spider to that height,

Then steered the white moth thither in the night?

What but design of darkness to appall?–

If design govern in a thing so small.

Robert Frost, “Design” (courtesy of Rick Brookhiser)

I reported on this year’s New York International Fringe Festival (which runs through Sunday) in today’s Wall Street Journal drama column. The most talked-about show I saw was Bridezilla Strikes Back!:

For those who don’t keep up with reality TV, “Bridezillas” is the series that follows a group of increasingly demented brides-to-be as they plan their Must…Be…Perfect Weddings. Cynthia Silver, now a faculty member at New York’s Atlantic Theater Company, was approached to take part in the first season and jumped at the chance for network TV exposure, taking for granted that it was a straight documentary and not realizing that the producers would edit the cinema-verit