I ate at the best restaurant in the world. I don’t really remember it that well. READ MORE >>
It did not take long, after the attacks at the finish line of the Boston marathon, for images of the carnage to start rocketing around the web. The stills and the video footage streamed across our screens even before the police or the local government could confirm what had happened. Every event is a font of images now, every bystander a photographer. READ MORE >>
There is nowhere left to live in New York. Trust me, I know. Fewer apartments are on the market today in the city than at any time since records began, and if you want one you’d better be able to put up the cash. Manhattan, converted these past 20 years into an antiseptic (that’s Giuliani’s doing) luxury goods emporium (that’s Bloomberg’s), has long been out of reach; the leafier areas of Brooklyn were colonized in the last decade by brunching hordes willing to pay seven figures to live in ironic imitation of their immigrant grandparents. READ MORE >>
There she lies: a woman stretched out on a white mattress, encoffined in glass like Vladimir Lenin. Yet despite the deathly pallor of her skin Tilda Swinton is only asleep, or pretending to be. She’s fully dressed, in a plaid button-down shirt and jeans, with grimy sneakers on her feet. READ MORE >>
The word that comes up again and again in discussions about Michael Haneke, the Austrian director of Oscar nominee Amour, is “austere.” His films are so precisely crafted, with such rigorous camerawork and editing, that you feel you might suffocate halfway through. Minutes-long takes are not uncommon. There is no music, except for what the characters hear, and music is often more of an agony than a mercy. And then there’s the violence—it’s depicted unflinchingly and without warning. READ MORE >>
J.M. Coetzee, Curator?
The gravest novelist of our time dives into art world glitz
Berlinde De Bruyckere, an artist known for her disturbing humanoid sculptures, announced last week that she wanted some outside assistance organizing her exhibition for the Belgian pavilion at this summer’s Venice Biennale—but instead of tapping a professional curator, she’s chosen a writer to help her mount the show. And not just any writer. She’s tapped J.M. READ MORE >>
