On the heels of learning that Robert Downer Jr. is alive comes the much sadder news — gleaned from a trip to Borders and watching the Daily Show last night — that Bill Moyers is also still alive. And he still knows how to pronounce democracy.
As a nation mourns this non-passing, don’t you think our newspapers ought to have a pre-obituary section to prepare us for such surprise re-emergences? One that would, you know, apprise us of the activities of the unexpectedly undead? I do.
David Mamet’s latest cinematic haiku, Redbelt, is a very good movie. Here are some recent articles he wrote for Playboy and NY Times describing his interest in its subject (ass-kicking).
I also saw Iron Man, which delivers the happy news that Robert Downey Jr. is alive. A brilliant-yet-flawed genius who lives like a prince and screws every cooch in the kennel without a second thought, he must finally learn to be responsible and get serious about life, by buckling down to screw Gwyneth Paltrow. We never actually see it happen. Ready, set, sequel.
If you’re interested in the plot, it literally turns on the following lines:
1. “How ironic,” says a young female reporter who studied journalism at a Devil Wears Prada screening. “In trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever.”
2. “A system that is comfortable with zero accountability.”
3. “Balance of power.”
The realization that something created to help Americans can also end up hurting Americans isn’t exactly cathartic news to someone who once dropped a copy of Atlas Shrugged on his foot, so my opinion doesn’t count.
What follows are the concluding sentences of an article in the upcoming issue of a major magazine.
“It’s the most awesome place ever,” she says.
For once, Hesse sounds like she’s 26.
The New York Review of Magazines, a magazine produced by graduate students at Columbia’s journalism school and published by Victor Navasky, legendary editor of The Nation, is now live. It includes my feature piece about the Baghdad blogger who incited a war between The Weekly Standard and The New Republic, as well as my comparative review of Liberty and Reason magazines. Also, don’t miss the profile of the literary Christopher Hitchens, a report on the style of early Esquire, and many other dispatches from the magazine world.
