Brooding Vincent van Gogh. Sunny David Hockney. Two artists who could not be more different. Two artists separated by temperament and time, by style and technology. Yet both are united by their belief in the power of drawing. the Getty quotes him about his photocollage, “Pearblossom Hwy., 11 – 18th April 1986, #1,” above left, […]

We call it the It featured family photo from Didion’s private collection, and “The Year of Magical Thinking.” Couple all that with cover story of The New York Times Magazine (on Sept. 25) — an 8,500-word excerpt from the book (which we liked very much) — and it gives us an inkling that Joan is […]

We didn’t intend to take the week off. But it turns out that’s what happened. There was no particular reason, except a touch of blog fatigue, which was regrettable because we missed posting the BBC saga about the divine inspiration that led to the invasion of Iraq. press release, then as failure of nerve. That […]

He’s the blackest white man you’ll ever encounter: listen to it yourself), made with Earl Hines on piano, about James Baldwin and what Bessie Smith meant to him. As soon as Goodman’s interview with this national treasure is posted, we’ll put up the link. In the meantime, listen to this radio drama: Part 1, Part […]

On An Overgrown Path? It has a delicious worldwide blogroll of radio stations that lets you listen to Bartok Radio, one of Hungary’s three nationwide channels, which broadcasts 24/7 from Budapest. Or check out Pliable, and has listed more than 60 other foreign and domestic stations. It’s a great service. –TSoT EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

You don’t get anything like the buckfush.com editorial illustration, below, anywhere in The New York Times. But the subscriber-based Talking Points personal opinion pieces by editorial page editor Gail Collins. She writes about everything from fictional women in American politics, i.e., the new TV show “Commander in Chief” (“The Gender Landscape: It’s Reigning Men”). “Faux […]

Harriet Miers, right, the trusted adviser and legal gofer he nominated this morning to replace Justice Sandra Day O’Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court. What does that say about Miers’s judicial temperament, let alone his arrogance? Next question … So here it is: Did she really say (this comes courtesy of Salon.com’s David Frum is […]

We’ve been reading On the day he lost his innocence before the eyes of the world, Sergeant Javal Davis was sitting in the mess hall at Victory Base in Abu Ghraib prison, eating a plate of rice and tuna fish. It was April 28, 2004. Insurgents were still launching the occasional rocket-propelled grenade at their […]

the world is one big blog, God may become a blogger, too. That’s not a certainty, of course, we’re merely speculating. But at the very least He’s about to get his own first-ever God Blog Convention two weeks from now in southern California. GodBlogCon, as it’s being called, will feature keynote speaker Vestal Virigins, like […]

Leave it to Broussard on NBC’s Meet the Press three weeks ago, “angrily lamenting the failure of the national government to act in a timely manner in the face of Katrina” — the name tickled a “sense memory” in his brain, and he recalled buying a vinyl LP, right, which had been released by “the […]

Notice anything peculiar? We do. If you don’t, we’re not going to tell you what it is. But we’ll give you a hint, Mr. Jones. It has to do with news judgment (i.e. how the breaking story of DeLay’s indictment was headlined on the MSNBC.com cover). It also makes you wonder how the Web’s most […]

Playing catch-up on this, but only by hours, and it’s never too late for such news. Here’s UCLA Professor Stephen Bainbridge’s Speculation about his drinking — like this this is no rumor, we’re glad to say. — Tireless Staff of Thousands EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

Jeb Eddy, the email exchange with a critic, John Armor, who claims Eddy is just a Democrat in disguise. critics like him is that they’re making Eddy’s own case for him. By arguing that Eddy is not really G.O.P. ilk — mainly because he has given contributions to Democrats and doesn’t believe in the current […]

Something else for Christopher Hitchens to chew on, the phoney peacenik. Fishback is a West Point graduate from Michigan and son of a Vietnam War veteran, according to

Christopher Hitchens (who Wizbang!, Shock & Blog, but rather “a big, fat, liberal phony — but that’s being redundant, isn’t it?”) both make the case that the press can’t be trusted to clarify the issues or even to lay out the facts because it’s biased, stupid, easily fooled and, not least, amnesiac. In answer to […]