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Raunchy, Raucous Coney Island
Collection of Ken Harck/Brooklyn Museum Steeplechase Funny Face, no date “The only thing about America that interests me is Coney Island,” Sigmund Freud is supposed to have said—and the itinerary of...
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Mystery in Miniature
Collection of Ricky Jay/Siglio Press Detail from a self-portrait by Matthias Buchinger, 1724; his hair consists of Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer Miniature is one of the refuges of greatness....
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Looking for Citizen Welles
Young Orson: The Years of Luck and Genius on the Path to Citizen Kaneby Patrick McGilliganHarper, 820 pp., $40.00Orson Welles: One-Man Bandby Simon CallowViking, 624 pp., $40.00 (to be published in...
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A Case for Execution
Tom Horne, reply by Jed S. RakoffIn response to:The Magna Carta Betrayed? from the February 11, 2016 issueReuters Earl Washington, who in 1984 was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder, with Marie...
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Forced Conversion to Islam?
Todd Caldecott, reply by Max RodenbeckIn response to:How She Wants to Modify Muslims from the December 3, 2015 issueTo the Editors:In his recent review of Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now by...
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Information Please
To the Editors:Author seeks information, recollections concerning Leonore (Mrs. Ira) Gershwin and the musicologist/biographer Joan Peyser.David MargolickNew York Citymargolick@gmail.com(212) 721-3328
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The Dangerous Election
James Glover/Reuters Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Reno, Nevada, January 2016 Everyone who has seriously worked in politics and journalism agrees that this has been the strangest and least...
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Berlin: The End of a Museum Idyll
Schöning/ullstein bild/Getty Images The Dahlem museums, Berlin, March 11, 2014 For the past quarter-century, the museums in Berlin’s genteel western suburb of Dahlem have been treated like a relic of...
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Kicked Out in America!
Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American Cityby Matthew DesmondCrown, 418 pp., $28.00Magnum Photos Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 2014; photograph by Mark Power from the series ‘Postcards from America’...
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The Fierce Courage of Nina Simone
What Happened, Miss Simone?a Netflix documentary film directed by Liz GarbusWhat Happened, Miss Simone?: A Biographyby Alan LightCrown Archetype, 309 pp., $26.00Hulton Archive/Getty Images Nina Simone...
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The Scalia Myth
Paul Hosefros/The New York Times/Redux Judge Antonin Scalia in his office, shortly before his confirmation to the Supreme Court, Washington, D.C., July 28, 1986 Justice Antonin Scalia used to say, only...
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The Original Wagner
The Morgan Library & Museum Costume designs for Der Ring des Nibelungen by Carl Emil Doepler, Berlin, 1889 Some devotees of Richard Wagner have suggested, not wholly in jest, that the best way to...
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Obama’s Most Dangerous Legacy
AFP/Getty Images The remains of a car containing three suspected al-Qaeda militants, after a drone strike, Yemen, January 26, 2015 President Barack Obama’s plan for closing Guantánamo, delivered to...
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Cancer: A Time for Skeptics
The Death of Cancerby Vincent T. DeVita Jr. and Elizabeth DeVita-RaeburnSarah Crichton Books/ Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 324 pp., $28.00Art Gallery of Nova Scotia/Robert Pope Foundation Robert Pope:...
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Russia: The End of the Illusion?
Sergei Karpukhin TPX Images of the Day/Reuters Police officers detaining a protester near the Central Bank headquarters, Moscow, February 8, 2016 On Monday evening, Russian President Vladimir Putin...
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The Election Pileup
Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images“Truckers for Trump” convoy, Des Moines, Iowa, January 28, 2016 This country is facing the extraordinary situation of an election year in which control of all three branches...
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Liberal, Harsh Denmark
Anne-Marie Steen Petersen A cartoon published by the Danish newspaper Politiken showing Inger Støjberg, the country’s integration minister, lighting candles on a Christmas tree that has a dead...
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France: Is There a Way Out?
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Actors from the Globe Theatre performing Hamlet for refugees and migrants in the Jungle refugee camp, Calais, France, February 2016 On the morning of Thursday, January 7,...
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Statues of Wrath and Serenity
The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource Statue of the Wisdom King Fudō Myōō by Kaikei, Kamakura period, early thirteenth century Every age is one of anxiety. But few have responded with art more...
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Windows on the Will
The Polar Expressa film directed by Robert ZemeckisAnomalisaa film directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke JohnsonOn the Suffering of the Worldby Arthur Schopenhauer, translated from the German by R.J....
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