Michael Joseph Gross has written an eye-opening article on the battle amongst nations and non-state actors in cyber space. The battle is raging with major implications, but 99.9% of us are utterly unaware. Their eyeballs felt it first. A wall of 104-degree air hit the cyber-security analysts as they descended from the jets that had […]
Sam Kashner, “Capote’s Swan Dive,” Vanit
Ah, some much talent, and such a miserable ending. From 1945 until the early 1970s, Capote had roaring success as a writer. By 1978 he was a mumbling drunk making an ass of himself on the Stanley Siegel Show, and he dropped dead in 1984. What happened? The answer is pretty simple—Capote was an alcoholic […]
Mark Bowden, “The Hunt for Geronimo,” Va
I enjoyed this article. Bowden writes well; this piece gallops along. While spinning an exciting yarn, Bowden introduces readers to the myriad players involved in the battle against Al Qaeda: the National Security Adviser, Director of National Intelligence, CIA, Department of Defense, State Department, etc. He also conveys a sense of the immense time-suck that […]
James Reginato, “The Luck of the Lambton
File this one under guilty reads—very guilty reads. In short, its about the life of the son of a disgraced former Minister of Parliament. Middlee-aged Ned Lambton lives on a gorgeous estate in Tuscany, is hitched to a young beautiful woman, and has beautiful people visit him regularly. (Note the photographs of actress Lily Robinson […]
Francis Wheen, “The Lady and the Vamp,”
This is an amusing article on the acrimony that breaks out when a new editor arrives at the staid, 127-year old The Lady magazine. Anglophiles will particularly enjoy it. The redoubtable Mrs. B., clad in twinset and pearls, was a magnet for quote-hungry reporters. “It suited the impression that this was just a Wodehouse novel […]
Lesley M. M. Blume, “The Canvas and the
I visited the Pollock-Krasner house this past summer. (My photographs are here.) I was struck by how out in the woods it was. Turn back the clock 60 years when Pollock was there, and it must have been unbelievably quiet. Except for the rowdiness of Pollock himself, and the boozy crowd he drew. Before he […]