..says Wieseltier, head-to-toe in black and wearing aviators when he greets me in his corner office, which is almost comically stacked with books.

http://nymag.com/news/features/chris-hughes-2012-12/index4.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/12/how-the-mullahs-won/309170/?single_page=true

How the Mullahs Won

Salman Rushdie’s artistic decline

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By Isaac Chotiner

People wonder what was it about Christopher Hitchens that they loved. I think what was so special about him was that he was not afraid of thinking differently AND not afraid of saying it. So many people in the world of ideas- for wont of a better term- seem to emote the same as everyone else, and take their lack of independence of thought for enlightened opinion. Hitchens was different. Sometimes he followed the herd, sometime he didn't; he always did recognize that it was a herd. And when he disagreed, he had no problem saying it and saying it in such a enjoyable way.  He is missed.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324439804578115282233557780.html

This article is self-serving in the extreme. It is easy to say:

 I don't think Agatha Christie or Arthur Conan Doyle ever worried about this. As long as they concocted tricky plots, Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes could be served up over and over with barely a fresh sprig of parsley because almost nothing in their personal lives ever changed (if one doesn't count being sent over the Reichenbach Falls).

For over 40 years, a few sentences were enough to remind readers that Poirot was a meticulous little Belgian and Holmes a quirky intellect who lived at 221B Baker Street. ... To be fair, though, readers back then didn't seem to mind. The genre was still so new that workmanlike literary skills, an eccentric protagonist and a surprise ending were enough.

Of course, Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are not such amazing creations as, " a North Carolina district court judge." At the end of the day, they are unique, Holmes certainly more than Poirot, and that is why they were popular then and that is why they are more popular now than a certain, “North Carolina district court judge." This is also why they will be popular in fifty years, when those novels of about, " a North Carolina district court judge," are pulp (or 0 and 1).

Interesting article about the fall of Jonah Lehrer

http://nymag.com/news/features/jonah-lehrer-2012-11/

I enter the library and the tables are littered with the garbage from student’s food.

Some silly students are busy yelling at each other political claims and counter-claims., disturbing everyone else.

Sometime when listening to other people who feel a need to conduct their conversations at the top of their lungs I wonder why they can’t limit themselves to the comments sections in blogs. There are blogs missing commentators.

There is a wonderful article by Anthony Daniels on the demise of the book in the New Criterion. 

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-digital-challenge--I--Loss---gain--or-the-fate-of-the-book-7468

From the Wall Street Journal

 

The Ecstasy of Influence

A polymath whose creative talents heed no boundaries, Patrick Kinmonth has a cinematic aesthetic fueled by his love of collaboration—and a joyful sense of history

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204425904578072633736545850.html#ixzz2BO9S1Bky

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