Monday Medley

What we read while not going easy on Derek Jeter…

• A man in Staten Island died last week after being choked by the police for the crime of allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. The cop has lost his badge and gun, but no word yet on criminal charges.

• Radley Balko discusses the criminalization of parenting. Lenore Skenazy on what counts as a “sex crime.” 

• Edward Snowden did another video interview with The Guardian.

• Will Leitch didn’t like Derek Jeter’s final All-Star Game.

• The scenes from the Gaza Strip this week have been harrowing, as children and whole families are killed and a ground invasion is underway. In America, questions surround media coverage of the conflict.

• What liberals and libertarians are bonding over in DC.

• Musicians talk about their 30 favorite Smiths’ songs.

• The Seinfeld episode that was never filmed.

• What one cheating scandal says about No Child Left Behind.

• Cormac McCarthy loves to barbecue.

• A bar for every NYC subway stop.

Aught Lang Syne: The Top Ten Movies of the Decade

Despite my general negativity about movies of the Aughts, there were still plenty of great films released this decade (although I think a Top Ten list of 90s movies would probably omit films that could be #1 on this list). I’ve already provided a list of the ten funniest films of the decade, and there were other great comedies that didn’t make the list. Today, though, we turn our attention to the dramatic category. As Josh has already declared, though, genre concerns can be distracting, so I will not be bound my technical genre classifications. Consider this a list of films I like for “dramatic” reasons: 

Aught Lang Syne: The Decade in Literature, Part I

In addition to our Aught-themed Sunday Book Review, which we began last week, NPI is presenting a more general look at fiction of the decade in which we look quickly and some of the most significant works of literature published during this decade. This is Part I of a two-part series.

2666 — Roberto Bolaño

 The epic of the Aughts (so long as we’re not counting The Wire), 2666 affords Bolaño the posthumous chance to opine on death in all its forms: from the corporeal to the metaphysical. His characters are deep even when they are fleeting, and his style (in Natasha Wimmer’s translation) ranges from florid to hard-boiled. In contemplating his own legacy, Bolaño pretty much ensured it. 

–Tim

 

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay — Michael Chabon

I’ve already expanded on my high opinion of Michael Chabon’s novel about the Golden Age of Comic Books; The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay presents a compelling portrait of what it’s like to create fantasies in an era of global turmoil—a particularly resonant story of the Aughts, even if Chabon’s novel came out in 2000. While he deals with themes like evil and fantasy, however, Chabon is adept at depicting a rich setting of New York City in the 1930s.

— John S