Books & the Arts

Their Myths and Ours Their Myths and Ours

Karen Rosenberg has taught Russian literary history in the United States and Austria.

Sep 30, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Karen Rosenberg

Mickey & the Peep Show Mickey & the Peep Show

In 1980, amid debates about "cleaning up" Times Square, New York City Mayor Ed Koch warned, "New York cannot and should not become Disneyland.

Sep 30, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Wayne Hoffman

Woman Off the Verge Woman Off the Verge

To die for art: No one takes the idea seriously anymore, and yet people do it every day.

Sep 30, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Our Prison Complex Our Prison Complex

This past winter both Edwin Meese and Gen. Barry McCaffrey expressed surprising misgivings about the current direction of the War on Drugs.

Sep 23, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Theodore Hamm

The Boys of Summer The Boys of Summer

To the list of movie characters who look back on their lives from the Beyond, add Lester Burnham, the 42-year-old, dead narrator of American Beauty. He is a murder victim--so it ...

Sep 23, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Sunstein’s Law Sunstein’s Law

He criticizes the liberal Warren Court for breaking new constitutional ground on too many fronts too broadly, while also giving no quarter to the constitutional theories of conse...

Sep 23, 1999 / Books & the Arts / David Rudenstine

Adults Only Adults Only

Conventional wisdom has it that Americans stopped attending foreign films as soon as the domestic ones started featuring bare breasts. Convention, as usual, is too simple.

Sep 16, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Inherit an Ill Wind Inherit an Ill Wind

Way down in Georgia last month, REM lead singer Michael Stipe paused in the middle of a solo during a rock concert because he had Kansas on his mind.

Sep 16, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Larry Witham and Edward Larson

Decolonizing the Mind Decolonizing the Mind

As Hawaii's first American century comes to an end, marking grim anniversaries of overthrow and forced annexation by the United States, a groundswell for Native Hawaiian sovereig...

Sep 16, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Mindy Pennybacker

Behind the Blue Helmets Behind the Blue Helmets

The new US envoy to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, has personal experience of how frustrating it can be to negotiate, even when speaking in the name of that mega-clich&ea...

Sep 9, 1999 / Books & the Arts / Ian Williams

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