Flit

YOU CARRY A PIECE EVERYWHERE

YOU CARRY A PIECE EVERYWHERE YOU GO FOR THIRTY YEARS, AND WHEN YOU FINALLY NEED TO WASTE SOMEONE, YOUR KEEPERS PULL YOUR HAND AWAY...

Also from the Post. One wonders if the powers behind the throne even let him have real bullets by this point.

BRITTLE CHINA Just to stay

BRITTLE CHINA

Just to stay with the theme of Orwell's vision having come true in China that we're running with this week, here's the latest revelations from the Washington Post. Even Christianity, it seems, is doubleplusungood now.

JOURNALISM REDEEMS ITSELF, vol. 2

JOURNALISM REDEEMS ITSELF, vol. 2 -- THE NEW REPUBLIC ON BALLET

There is a particular kind of piece that the New Republic has specialized in over the years, that it does somehow better than any other magazine: for lack of a better word, call it the "survey" piece. A writer takes an aspect of culture and politics, and the standard feature thesis "everything you think you know about this subject is wrong." But where the writers at other magazine, such as the New Yorker, remain firmly rooted in the today of the issue, exhaustively chronicling the NOW of the subject, TNR's writers, right after establishing their thesis, go back to the distant past, somewhere between Greece and the Enlightenment, and run you through the entire "story so far," before returning at the end to the present dilemma, which inevitably comes off as just one more chapter in an epic story. The reader, if he makes it that far, is left with the feeling at the end of experience like someone has plugged a data firehose into their left ear and left it running for a couple hours. You may not know anything more at the end than you did at the beginning, but left with a feeling that you'd be capable of that if you wanted to be. And throughout, their writers continually show off technical virtuosity, passion for the subject, and fearless critical judgment. In my undergrad days I picked up TNR every week for those pieces... it had to be a pretty good lecture that would reward me more cerebrally than sitting crosslegged on the Quad grass with a bunch of their think-pieces next to my elbow would.

A classic example is today's piece on ballet. I have as much to say about ballet as I do about quantum computing, and I still doubt I'll ever see that as any great shortcoming on my part. But after reading today's superb piece by Jennifer Homans, I feel I see its sociocultural significance a little better: For the first time I feel, if I had time to listen, that ballet might have something to say to me. As it has so many times in the past, TNR refused to accept my indifference: demanding instead that I resummon the wonder and curiosity of my youth, in order to visit whatever yet-uncharted realm they wished to point me towards this time. THAT'S what writing's about. Bravo.