Category Archives: Uncategorized

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 →

Here’s a question for Curbed types or anybody else: where’s the best place in NYC for hailing a cab? I’m looking for somewhere you can get a cab more or less immediately, at more or less any time of day … Continue reading →

My sister’s blog has now been spun off to its own site, rhiansalmon.com – which has just been updated with a fascinating post about the results of all the science she was doing in Antarctica. By measuring lots of different … Continue reading →

I’ve just been to a screening of An Inconvenient Truth, the new film about climate change featuring Al Gore. Gore, it turns out, has spent the past few years perfecting a new stump speech, this one solely dedicated to the … Continue reading →

Once upon a time, there were "apartment houses", which soon got shortened to apartments. In England, we have flats. Sometimes, when people start talking in real-estate jargon, you might hear about condos and co-ops and duplexes and other such arcana. … Continue reading →

Lauren Rouleau of ReganBooks just sent me an email asking if I would like a review copy of These Things I Wish, the new book from Lee Pitts. ReganBooks has taken a popular internet meme, which has already been published … Continue reading →

Bill Keller, the editor of the New York Times, weighs in today on the subject of the Sudan advertorial. Here’s what he has to say: I know that the executives on the business side of The Times argued long and … Continue reading →

I love this story about a $218 trillion phone bill. Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father’s phone line in January after he died and settled the 84-ringgit (U.S. $23) bill, the New Straits Times reported. But Telekom Malaysia … Continue reading →

Keith Kelly in the New York Post yesterday: Art & Antiques has been sold to Curtco Media, which aims to bring a new sense of urgency to a once sleepy cultural backwater of publishing that is suddenly percolating to life. … Continue reading →

You can take your news straight, or you can take it with a generous dose of snark. Either way, the story seems clear. Here’s Amy Norton, of Reuters: Middle-schoolers who sport alcohol-branded T-shirts and caps may start to drink sooner … Continue reading →