Author Archives: Felix

Smoking in Manhattan

Posted on August 15, 2002 by Felix

Stefan Geens, a man whose description of his blog on nycbloggers.com starts with the sentence "free trade is good," has gone decidedly off Milton Friedman’s deep end in his latest post. It reminds me of the old joke: How many … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | 5 Comments

The World’s Greatest Atlas

Posted on August 13, 2002 by Felix

More traveller’s thoughts: this time one of those ideas you have when you wake up in a strange hotel room at some time of day when you’re really meant to be going to sleep, not waking up, and you’ve just … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | 1 Comment

Number portability: The craven FCC caves in

Posted on July 29, 2002 by Felix

Pop along to the Federal Communication Commission’s website, and buried in the "Headlines" you’ll find something saying "Verizon Wireless’ Petition for Partial Forbearance from the Commercial Mobile Radio Services Number Portability Obligation and Telephone Number Portability." Click on one of … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments

Tadpole

Posted on July 28, 2002 by Felix

The first thing we’re told at the beginning of Miramax’s much-hyped new film, Tadpole, is that it’s "a film by" Gary Winick. (He also, of course, gives himself a "directed by" credit a couple of minutes further on.) Later in … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | 9 Comments

Why the Department of Homeland Security is a Really Bad Idea

Posted on July 18, 2002 by Felix

There is no one more boring than the person you get stuck next to at dinner who expounds at length on the subject of his or her treatment at the hand of the Department of Motor Vehicles. We know it’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Politics | 2 Comments

Rebuilding Lower Manhattan

Posted on July 17, 2002 by Felix

No one seems very impressed by the six plans which have been put forward for the redevelopment of theWorld Trade Center site. The pretty much unanimous view seems to be that they’ve been hamstrung by the requirements to include 11 … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | 3 Comments

Built-in obsolescence

Posted on July 12, 2002 by Felix

Over the past few years, I’ve been slowly developing a theory of what I call built-in obsolescence in art. It’s still far from fully formed, but in a nutshell it says that all art becomes obsolete eventually, and that there’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | 7 Comments

MoMA QNS and Minority Report

Posted on July 1, 2002 by Felix

Yesterday I went to see two much-hyped recent openings, both drawing capacity audiences. Both, I have to say, were disappointing, although only by their own very high standards. Michelle, Stefan and I were not the only ones attracted to a … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Film | Comments Off on MoMA QNS and Minority Report

Globalization and its Discontents

Posted on June 27, 2002 by Felix

It’s that time of year again: the G8 is meeting, this time in Kananaskis, Canada, and the protestors are out. “Their one overriding message:” as Jon Stewart said on the Daily Show last night, “we don’t have an overriding message”. … Continue reading →

Posted in Finance, Politics | 1 Comment

Maxim

Posted on June 5, 2002 by Felix

David Brock, meet Dave Itzkoff. Dave is a bit like you: he used to be blind, but now he sees! Except he hasn’t changed his political allegiance, he’s just quit his job at Maxim. And written a piece for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Media | 2 Comments

Wired

Posted on May 28, 2002 by Felix

It’s hard to find halfways-decent magazines these days, and when, like me, you’ve gone on one airline journey already this month, the range of reading materials at Orange County airport can start to look rather thin. Which is how I … Continue reading →

Posted in Media | 1 Comment

Journalistic innumeracy, cont.

Posted on May 22, 2002 by Felix

I’ve written before about journalists and statistics, but a couple of recent articles in America’s paper of record, the New York Times, make it worth banging this particular drum a little bit more. First of all, Rick Lyman, the Hollywood … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Media | Comments Off on Journalistic innumeracy, cont.

Literary financial journalism

Posted on May 19, 2002 by Felix

Chalk this one up for the annals of self-defeat: it won’t take long before the tireless spiders of Google chance upon this posting and thereby rid my favourite web page of its punch. ‘Your search – “literary financial journalism” – … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | 2 Comments

Spider-Man and Hollywood Ending

Posted on May 7, 2002 by Felix

They’re both franchises. Spider-Man, in his various incarnations, and Woody Allen, in his, have been around seemingly forever; both, too, are identified with New York City. Both released films on May 3, and both films are pretty much as you … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | 6 Comments

Herbie Hancock

Posted on March 28, 2002 by Felix

It’s probably fair to say that there’s been virtually nothing really new and different in popular music over the past few years. It’s been nearly ten years since a band has come along which has changed the world’s musical vocabulary … Continue reading →

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Felix at the Oscars

Posted on March 25, 2002 by Felix

I called ’em. Unlike certain Belgians who never really outgrew their D&D phase, I knew that even the Academy at its worst wouldn’t give the Best Picture award to a piece of dreck like Lord of the Rings. I got … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Comments Off on Felix at the Oscars

Journalists and statistics

Posted on March 2, 2002 by Felix

In recent days there has been much play over the fact that CNN, the Associated Press, NBC and other news organisations swallowed a statistically worthless report which said that underage drinkers drank 25% of all the alcohol consumed in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Media | 4 Comments

Gerhard Richter

Posted on February 28, 2002 by Felix

There is very little in the way of curatorial interjection in MoMA’s Gerhard Richter retrospective. There are only two wall texts: one at the beginning, saying, essentially, that writing about Richter is futile; and one half-way through, giving the necessary … Continue reading →

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Michael Finkel and the New York Times Magazine

Posted on February 27, 2002 by Felix

As any regular Romenesko reader knows, the New York Times Magazine has fired a contributing editor, Michael Finkel, for using "improper narrative techniques" in his profile of a Malian teenager who worked on a cocoa plantation. The basic facts of … Continue reading →

Posted in Media | 3 Comments

Kinsley on mammograms

Posted on February 21, 2002 by Felix

Michael Kinsley is no longer editor of Slate. He gave up that post amidst rather a lot of publicity last week, saying that he would continue at the online magazine as a columnist. That was good news: Kinsley, when he’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Media | 7 Comments

Lord of the Rings

Posted on February 18, 2002 by Felix

I guess it’s partly my fault: I made a bet with Stefan just after Lord of the Rings came out, and as part of that bet I promised him that if the film got nominated for either Best Director or … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | 25 Comments

Books and Chomsky

Posted on February 15, 2002 by Felix

Cast your mind back, if you will, one month. The bestseller lists at the time were dominated by right-wing screeds; Michael Kinsley even wrote a column about it, which is helpful, because we can use it to remember where those … Continue reading →

Posted in Media | 1 Comment

Air travel redux

Posted on February 13, 2002 by Felix

Last Monday, I flew to New York from Toronto, where I’d gone to watch my sister become a Ph.D. I was booked onto a 9am flight, but I got there early enough that I had time to make it onto … Continue reading →

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Mail.com redux

Posted on February 5, 2002 by Felix

So I got something approaching a proper reply from mail.com. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I wrote about it in January, but suffice to say that they promised me a free-for-life email forwarding service, and then told … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements | 1 Comment

Self-esteem

Posted on February 4, 2002 by Felix

The New York Times Magazine this weekend has an interesting, if slightly confused, article about how self-esteem is overrated. It’s based on research by, among others, Nicholas Emler of the LSE and Roy Baumeister of Case Western Reserve University. Here … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture | Comments Off on Self-esteem