How Vice-President Harris’s public persona has evolved, from tough prosecutor to frozen interviewee to joyful candidate. By Vinson Cunningham
His campaign is careening, his poll numbers are slipping, and, after something of a summer lull, he is due for several confrontations in court.
As the oceans ebb and surge, staggering ingenuity has gone into inventing the measure. By Brooke Jarvis
On John Constable’s The Hay Wain & the foundations of the West.
We write as The New Criterion’s annual period of aestivation enters its home stretch. The cicadas are buzzing, the days are noticeably shorter, and the leaves—some of them—are already edged with brown. Certain summers feature quiet expanses of lazy days. This one was different. In July, Donald Trump, except for the tip of his right ear, dodged a would-be assassin’s bullet; Joe Biden dropped (or, we now know, was pushed) out of the 2024 presidential race but, as of this writing, remains president; Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice president, stepped into the vacancy and magically became the new candidate for president, choosing the Minnesota governor Tim Walz as her running mate.
@nplusonemag (August 16, 2024): The ‘Inside Job’ issue features Pope Fiction, My AI Could Paint That, Literal Death Drive, Raven Leilani on Grief Writing; Biden – A Retrospective and A Satire by Saidiya Hartman…
Times Literary Supplement (August 14, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Guy vs the Spies’ – Robert Cecil’s secret intelligence network; The new Cold War; On annihilation; What anxiety means; G.K. Chesterton’s Notting Hill…
Rhian Sasseen swipes right on behalf of a fictional porn addict;
Francesca Peacock roots through the archives for a deeper understanding of scandal and speech;
Ruth Madievsky closes the gate on her college rumor mill;
and Emmeline Clein recounts an “American Icarus story” spelled out in diet pills and rhinestones.
Francesca Peacock roots through the archives for a deeper understanding of scandal and speech in an essay from the LARB Quarterly issue no. 42, “Gossip.”
Country Life Magazine (August 14, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Save the Albion Cow’ – It’s rarer than a Giant Panda; Old houses, new technology; Hot and Steamy – Why the pressure cooker is back and Whizz kids – What made Elizabeth I, Brunel and Nelson special…
Our treasured native livestock breeds are in danger of being lost, yet they have a crucial role to play, believes Kate Green
Anyone waiting with trepidations for the A-level results should take heart from the likes of Nelson and Brunel, says Alice Loxton
Old houses with poor wifi need not be denied new gadgets, from wireless lighting to kettles that can be switched on remotely. Julie Harding taps her screen
From a hollowed-out cow to autofocus and gyro-stabilised cameras, clever ideas continue to transform wildlife photography. Amie Elizabeth White takes a look down the lense.
Neil Buttery fires up the pressure cooker, back in our kitchens and tenderising those bones
Sturdy, hardworking and now prized for their rarity, farm wagons were key to rural life in times past. Jack Watkins rolls out the surviving examples.
Follow thou Toby Keel’s wise advice for digital life and thou shalt not be shunned in society
The new generation is building on a fine legacy of gardening and travel at Bryngwyn Hall in Powys, where Caroline Donald wanders among trees gathered from far-flung countries
John Wright sets off into the woods in search of meaty rot fungi, the magnificent chicken of the woods and its cousin, joy-inducing hen of the woods
It might be an acquired taste, but gazpacho — recipe of your choice — is worth tasting again. Tom Parker Bowles dips his spoon into a Spanish favourite
by Rick Lewis
Elixir of extended life for mice • Nicholas Rescher mini obituary • Nietzsche exhibition in his childhood home — News reports by Anja Steinbauer
Audren Layeux follows the doomed quest for state emancipation of the self.
Christophe Bruchansky looks at maximising the diversity of choice.
Arianna Marchetti reflects on the limits of political freedom.
Oliver Waters asks, is retributive justice justified in a modern society?
Veronique Aïcha considers the ideology of imprisonment.
Do jokes express our otherwise taboo wishes? Or does everyone just need a pie in the face? By Emma Allen
The semi-serious science of why we laugh. By Tad Friend
Chaplin’s epochal fame has tended to obscure the influences and instincts that infused his art with childlike purity.
‘To me, Song for Octave welcomes you into a different world. A dreamland in slow motion. I imagine being a child and walking in a glass house for the very first time, watching the rays of sunshine coming through the leaves of a big tree. It’s a quiet and peaceful conversation between light and shadow. (Pure and beautiful).‘
Rich in contemporary colour and contrast, LIFE – Mari Samuelsen’s third album for Deutsche Grammophon – is inspired by her experience of becoming a mother. Known for her vibrant and imaginative programming as well as her passionate and virtuosic playing, the Norwegian violinist has created a kaleidoscopic musical reflection of some of the emotional discoveries that come with parenthood.
The album presents music by Olivia Belli, Bryce Dessner, Ludovico Einaudi, Nils Frahm, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Mário Laginha, Hania Rani, Max Richter and Steve Reich, with a dash of Schubert also thrown into the mix. Samuelsen was joined at Teldex Studios in Berlin last autumn by a small group of fellow musicians, including the string players of Scoring Berlin, conducted by Jonathan Stockhammer. LIFE comes out digitally and on vinyl on 23 August 2024.
Find out more about Mari Samuelsen here: Instagram: / samuelsenofficial Facebook: / marisamuelsenofficial X: / samuelsofficial Website: https://marisamuelsen.com/
By James Butler
The first time the man heard God, he uprooted his entire life, though he was very old. Then God appeared to him in person, an event which would embarrass later thinkers. God made the man an impossible promise in the shape of a son. His wife was ninety, and she laughed. When the child arrived, it was hardly unreasonable to think it a miracle. They named the child after the laughter.
By Colin Burrow
In 1904 Henry James’s agent negotiated with the American publisher Charles Scribner’s Sons to produce a collected edition of his works. The New York Edition of the Novels and Tales of Henry James duly appeared in 1907-9. It presented revised texts of both James’s shorter and longer fiction, with freshly written prefaces to each volume. It didn’t include everything: ‘I want to quietly disown a few things by not thus supremely adopting them,’ as James put it. The ‘disowned’ works included some early gems such as The Europeans. The labour of ‘supremely adopting’ the stuff he still thought worthy was grinding. He worked on the new prefaces, which he described as ‘freely colloquial and even, perhaps, as I may say, confidential’ (though James’s notion of the ‘freely colloquial’ is perhaps not everyone’s) during the years 1905 to 1909. In some respects, the venture was not a success. ‘Vulgarly speaking,’ James said of the New York Edition, ‘it doesn’t sell.’
By Jean McNicol
A week before the start of the Paris Olympics, Shoko Miyata, the 19-year-old captain of the Japanese women’s gymnastics team, was forced to withdraw from the competition by her national association. She had been reported to the Japan Gymnastics Association for smoking and drinking (on separate occasions, once for each offence). The president of the JGA, Tadashi Fujita, announced that Miyata had been sent home, and bowed deeply.
Boomers Daily 