Author Archives: Felix

Jason Kottke’s found the new New Yorker media kit, and it certainly helps explain why I couldn’t find a copy of the magazine in St Louis. Newsstand circulation is just 46,808, compared to over 1 million subscribers. Looking over the … Continue reading →

We are editors, yes, but we must be writers as well. And sometimes a stylebook ruling or a factual correction conflicts with the goal of presenting prose that sounds as if maybe, just maybe, it was written by a human … Continue reading →

One of the more interesting aspects of the immigration debate is the difference between New York and Los Angeles. Los Angeles, full of immigrants, is split between the Latinos and their supporters, on the one hand, and those who would … Continue reading →

When you’re selling a $3.4 million townhouse in the East Village, you can rest assured your broker will show your place at its very best. Or, you know, not.

I have something of a morning routine: I get myself a cup of coffee and read the A section of the New York Times while waking up. The institutional verbosity of the Times makes my routine more difficult. But most … Continue reading →

When I reviewed An Inconvenient Truth last month, I complained that "it will be far too easy for Republicans to dismiss this film as liberal propaganda." Little did I know. MoveOn has now got into the act, at a webpage … Continue reading →

The interplay of art’s domain and money’s is very complex. The relationship of money to any individual work of art, however, is very simple. There is none. In practice, the culture usually sets a minimum value on works of art, … Continue reading →

I should be careful what I wish for, I guess: when I turned up unannounced on Friday night and asked for a table for four at Chubo, we were told that the restaurant was booked solid. So instead we hopped … Continue reading →

If the New York Times won’t, maybe Google will. I’m talking about pointing to original research: something I’m very interested in with my Report Report Report. (There have been quite a few articles I’ve wanted to write an RRR on, … Continue reading →

Alex Tabarrok today (in an article on which comments are closed): Since Galbraith wrote, for example, the number of privately owned communities has exploded. Today some 55 million Americans live in a private community, many of which provide their own … Continue reading →

Pogue’s Posts now comes with a full RSS feed. DealBook, Asimov, Bruni, however – still broken.

Greg Allen looks at the auctions in much the same way I did, only instead of Ryman vs Irwin, he uses Nara vs Smithson. As ever, the real money is in paintings. A handful of trophy sculptors (Koons, Hirst, Cattelan) … Continue reading →

So this season’s contemporary art auctions have come and gone: $143 million at Christie’s, $129 million at Sotheby’s. Sotheby’s wins the Best Quote Award, however: Tobias Meyer, director of contemporary art for Sotheby’s worldwide and the evening’s auctioneer, called the … Continue reading →

So here’s the deal. The King James Bible, The Wizard of Oz, and the UN Secretariat building in New York are all magnificent, towering achievements on an artistic level. Can you imagine a "Bible as Literature" class based on the … Continue reading →

This is what has become of Lot 61, the club that made Amy Sacco. The rear of the puddle on the floor more or less corresponds to where the wall behind the front bar used to be. It all looks … Continue reading →

A quick quiz for anybody who’s not Todd Gibson. What connects: The King James Bible The Wizard of Oz (the movie, not the book) The UN Secretariat building in New York? A special treat to whomever is first with the … Continue reading →

Subaru’s jump in March sales was, says, the company, because consumers are responding to our new campaign, ‘It’s What Makes a Subaru, a Subaru.’ Yes, that comma is there, always – in the print ads, in the television ads, in … Continue reading →

Alarm clock Humidifier Electric toothbrush (after every minute brushing) 3 telephone handsets Clock radio 2 desktop computers 2 laptop computers (actually, 3 at the moment) Washer Dryer Fridge Freezer Coffee maker Dishwasher Oven Microwave 2 digital cameras Fax machine 2 … Continue reading →

Karita Mattila and Anja Silja are two of the greatest actresses of their respective generations. You haven’t seen them in the movies, you probably haven’t even seen them on the TV. But if you’ve seen them on stage, the chances … Continue reading →

Anybody who read Clive Thompson’s excellent and fair-minded piece on Google in China in the NYT magazine this weekend will have flicked past yet another piece of real-estate porn to get there: a double-page spread from Zeckendorf Development, LLC advertising … Continue reading →

Roberta Smith gets the front page of the NYT arts section today to gush over the Donald Judd installation at Christie’s. She’s much less worked up than Tyler Green was over the fact that the Judds aren’t going to museums: … Continue reading →

Andrew Revkin has been covering global climate change for the New York Times since 1988. Today, he gets the front page of the Week in Review section to try to answer the key questions, which he puts this way: Is … Continue reading →

It was my birthday on Friday. I’d already got a couple of presents early: a wonderful tough & waterproof watch for when my grandfather’s very fragile one isn’t suitable, and a fabulous lab-flask-to-be-used-as-a-decanter inspired by this post. But then on … Continue reading →

Warning: highly digressive post ahead. It starts talking about suburbia and ends up in the more familiar realm of meta-media. Feel free to dip in and out… No posts for the past week – I was away on a work … Continue reading →

Wow. This is HUGE, and no one seems to have noticed it. Back in May 2005, Sarah Theule Lubienski and Christopher Lubienski published a report in the Phi Delta Kappan saying that after controlling for student background, mathematics achievement in … Continue reading →