New York Times

With all do respect to Claude Lanzmann, the director of the revered Holocaust documentary "Shoah," which gets re-released this Friday, I don't like his attitude these days.  In an interview with The New York Times published today, Lanzmann criticized mainstream Holocaust movies like "Schindler's List" and "Life is Beautiful."  And on Spielberg's decidely un-populist project t

It looks like the New York Times' Steve Martin 92nd Street Y comedy of manners story has turned into something bigger.  Today, Martin published an Op-Ed explaining himself more fully, and all last week's papers seemed to have something to say.  

In 1941, George Orwell wrote what may stand as the pithiest piece of writing about art and propoganda to date.  His essay "The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda" argued that, by the 1930s, it was impossible to be an English writer and not write about politics, however you chose to cloak it.  The aesthetic concerns of an earlier age--"art for art's sake," as he called it--were only possible when the climate was not choked with insecurity and political upheaval.  

In case you missed it, The New York Times snagged a quick but worthy Q&A with Woody Allen today, a week before his new film comes out.  Allen told the Times' Dave Itzkoff that his film, titled "You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger" and featuring Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts and Anthony Hopkins, was his way of exploring the nature of belief. 

The publishing trend of telling history through food may be approaching its end. In any event, Mark Kurlansky pretty much has the genre cornered, telling history through oysters, cod and salt.

 I am shocked to report that Rabbi James Ponet, although he never calls, never writes to ME (what am I, chopped liver?) agreed to talk to The New York Times.

Don’t worry about me, Rabbi Fancy-Pants Too Good For The Jewish Week, I’ll just sit in the dark.