Chris Barsanti's Blog, page 181
February 16, 2014
Readers’ Corner: Vasconcelos Library
The Jose Vasconcelos Library
One of the most amazing libraries in the world isn’t in some European capital and it doesn’t date from the 18th century. The 125,000-square footVasconcelos Library was built in Mexico City in 2006 and resembles nothing less than a space-age ark for reading.
As you can see in the images here, it’s an astonishing space with an atrium several stories high and about a block long, with blocks of shelves arranged like cubes and all of it cross-sectioned by frosted glass.
O...
February 15, 2014
New in Books: Roddy Doyle’s ‘The Guts’
Roddy Doyle’sThe Commitments was one of the great music novels of the past few decades. Published in 1989 and serving as the start for Doyle’s unofficial “Barrytown Trilogy” (also comprisingThe Van and The Snapper), it followed knockabout Dubliner Jimmy Rabbitte’s attempt to put together a great soul/R&B band with nothing but Irishmen. Doyle’s newest novel, The Guts, picks up with Jimmy many years on, still working with music but saddled with middle-aged responsibilities and a new problem: C...
February 14, 2014
Department of Weekend Reading: February 14, 2014
In the 1920s, Soviet athletic competitions(they were barred from the Olympics until 1952) featured no winners or losers, but equality between the genders and cool modernist outfits.
Western Catholics still think the Catholic Church is wrong on just about everything, but African and Asian Catholics are more amenable.
Zirin: NFL owners “sound like scared children when they talk about the prospect of drafting a player of the character of Michael Sam.”
Nap-time to weddings: IKEA in China.
Marco Rubio...
February 13, 2014
Quote of the Day: The Six Great Paintings
‘Soir Bleu’ by Edward Hopper (1914)
“It’s crazy,” she’d said, “but I’d be perfectly happy if I could sit looking at the same half dozen paintings for the rest of my life. I can’t think of a better way to go insane.”
—The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
Think about what six paintings you wouldn’t mind looking at forever.
February 11, 2014
New in Theaters: ‘The Monuments Men’
Matt Damon and George Clooney in ‘The Monuments Men’
During the latter part of World War II, as the Allies were advancing across Western Europe, special detachments of experts known as the Monuments Men fanned out with lists and a mandate to keep their own soldiers from demolishing cultural artifacts and finding those works that the Nazis had tried to keep for themselves. George Clooney’s attempt at turning that sliver of history into a cool, guys-on-a-mission film sadly falls apart almost bef...
February 10, 2014
Writer’s Corner: Poetry vs. Congress
Pundits who want examples of how America’s school system is failing can easily point to any number of metrics: How the kids are faring in math versus Singapore, or how few of them can locate their own country on a map. One other way might just be to listen to our politicians.
The right honorable Representative Trey Gowdy (R-South Carolina) went on the teevee over the weekend to talk politics. According to the Dumbest Man on the Internet(Missouri’s own!), Gowdy “hit it out of the park.” Judge f...
New in Theaters: ‘The Lego Movie’
Batman and Random ’80s Spaceman Guy Battle the Forces of Evil and Conformity in ‘The Lego Movie’
The last few years have seen a dismal parade of brand-extension movies for toy companies likeGI Joe andBattleship that barely deserved the digital space they occupied in some projection booth’s server. Now, a pleasant surprise: the anarchic, play-centricThe Lego Movie, which could just be that Holy Grail of the family film: Fun for all ages.
It’s playing now pretty much everywhere. My review is atPo...
February 9, 2014
Readers’ Corner: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman as Truman Capote: “Folks have thought they had me pegged, because of the way I am, the way I talk. And they’re always wrong.”
One more note on the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman. Back in 2004, he was interviewed byThe Believerand the talk sprawled over beyond life and acting into things literary.
Hoffman has played a few great figures from both sides of the literary page (Willy Loman, Truman Capote), but that’s not what gave him the credentials for this interview, it’...
February 8, 2014
Now Playing: ‘The Great Beauty’
The great Tom Servillo lives it up in ‘The Great Beauty’
Every now and again, a filmmaker is able to conquer the cinematic world with a work that might not have a lot to say (coherently, at least), but it throws enough at the viewer to send them away impressed and a little dazed. Last year’s version of that film was Paolo Sorrentino’sThe Great Beauty, a bright and comic variation onDante’s Inferno that doesn’t hold together in the light of day but seduced enough lovers of Rome and the high lif...
February 7, 2014
Department of Weekend Reading: February 7, 2014
Dear America: You are officially no longer that special.Good luck finding Jesse Ventura now.
The great Velveeta shortage of 2014.
Single rhino horn stolen from Michael Flatley’s mansion and other news from the week that was.
Koch brothers get billions in food stamps stripped from farm bill, their own subsidies intact.
Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight novella finally published.
Welcome to Sochi: You have been hacked.
Drought-ridden California, as seen from space.
Less orange: replacing sodium-vapor street...
