An Embarrassment of Riches The many ways to approach books, movies, and music. 1. I’ve always liked the phrase “an embarrassment of riches”. It has the same strange...
"Casablanca": A Critique or Defence of Centrism?How a movie from eighty years ago lives on today, and what it says about remaining "neutral". 1. Cinema was dead, to begin with....
Street Theatre: The Need To Be SeenHow Vivian Gornick's book Approaching Eye Level offers an exploration of the streets emptied of life during lockdown. 1. If the world is...
Seasonal Genres: Stories Throughout the YearIf the seasons match the four major genres, what are the pairings, and what do they tell us about fiction and films? Which season...
"The Grand Budapest Hotel": On Remembering Lost WorldsHow Wes Anderson's "spiritual adaptation" of Stefan Zweig's writing reveals the melancholy – and the danger – in nostalgia. 1. In The Art...
Your Undivided Attention: Why You Can't ConcentrateOn the costs of multitasking and the benefits of focused attention. 1. Last month, I conducted an experiment on my brain. There were no...
"Eternal Sunshine": Why Memory Is Lo-FiWhat Michel Gondry's movie, full of practical effects and the noise of film-grain, tells us about the mechanics of memory 1. As our lives...
