Schools in rich countries are making poor progress. They need to get back to basics, argues Mark Johnson
Hanging on to the best of them is getting harder
The actor talks about the origins of “Adaptation,” his potential leap to television, and the art of “keeping it enigmatic.”
By Susan Orlean
The wobbly distinction between reality and artifice fascinates Nicolas Cage. The first time we encountered each other was in 2001, during the making of “Adaptation”—a film based on Charlie Kaufman’s struggle to adapt my book “The Orchid Thief” for the screen—in which Cage played Kaufman and his twin, Donald. He was in the middle of a scene, and I tiptoed onto the set as quietly as possible, convinced that any distraction would trigger one of the eruptions for which Cage had become famous. Between takes, he glanced at the handful of people watching, and exclaimed cheerily, “Oh, guys, look!” He pointed at me and a small, fuzzy-haired man I hadn’t noticed beside me. “It’s the real Charlie and the real Susan!” He seemed tickled by this collision between the characters in the movie and their real-life counterparts, and insisted that the crew take note. (Kaufman and I, who had never met before that moment, slunk away sheepishly.)
Three decades into “This American Life,” the host thinks the show is doing some of its best work yet—even if he’s still jealous of “The Daily.”
By Sarah Larson
It can be easy to take the greatness of “This American Life,” the weekly public-radio show and podcast hosted by Ira Glass, for granted. The show, which Glass co-founded in 1995 at WBEZ, in Chicago, has had the same essential format for twenty-eight years and more than eight hundred episodes. It was instrumental in creating a genre of audio journalism that has flourished in recent decades, especially since the podcast boom—which was initiated by the show’s first spinoff, “Serial,” in 2014. Like “The Daily Show” or Second City, “This American Life” has trained a generation of talented people, and Glass’s three-act structures, chatty cadences, and mixture of analysis and whimsy are now so familiar as to seem unremarkable.
Country Life Magazine (July 2, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Call of the Coast’; Seaside treasure – the museum on the cliff; What a scoop – secrets of the ice-cream makers; A boatbuilder’s life, Barbie’s lore and best beach clubs…
Ben Lerwill drops anchor in the Thames to meet master boat-builder Mark Edwards, whose eclectic roll call of clients includes Elizabeth II and George Clooney
Artisan ice cream makers have got it licked, says Madeleine Silver, as she checks out cones lovingly created using local milk and natural flavourings
Barbie is still in the pink at the age of 65. Susan Jenkins charts the ups and downs of Mattel’s often-controversial, yet still much-loved figurehead
Rosie Paterson reveals that Italy is still the place to go for unbeatable beach clubs, Richard MacKichan discovers the untouched isle of Formentera and Pamela Goodman carves out her own niche on a transatlantic cruise
The writer chooses a ‘gorgeous panorama’ bursting with fellowship and rustic merry-making
The country is all of a flutter in the build up to the General Election, but all bets are off for an exasperated Carla Carlisle
Kate Green marvels at the Minack, Rowena Cade’s breathtaking cliffside amphitheatre
Increasing numbers of jellyfish are wobbling their way into British waters, but there’s no need to be alarmed, says Helen Scales
Hetty Lintell’s bold sunglasses leave everyone else in the shade
Well-thought-out garden buildings are an ideal way to get closer to Nature, suggests Amelia Thorpe
Rosie Paterson goes up, up and away for the capital’s Balloon Regatta, Levison Wood is in the hotseat, Holly Black takes the wraps off the new-look Royal Academy Schools and Jemima Sissons is on the comeback trail
The D-Day landings were planned from its shores, but today George Plumptre finds a haven of peace at Lepe House in Hampshire
Tom Parker Bowles is seduced by the charms of the strawberry, that most flirtatious of fruits
Melanie Johnson savours the joy of sweet and floral apricots
All eyes are on St Swithin’s Day as Lia Leendertz examines what weather lore has in store
And so has the world in which they are used, says Shashank Joshi
Afew years ago intelligence analysts observed that internet-connected cctv cameras in Taiwan and South Korea were inexplicably talking to vital parts of the Indian power grid. The strange connection turned out to be a deliberately circuitous route by which Chinese spies were communicating with malware they had previously buried deep inside crucial parts of the Indian grid (presumably to enable future sabotage). The analysts spotted it because they were scanning the internet to look for “command and control” (c2) nodes—such as cameras—that hackers use as stepping stones to their victims.
Nine thinkers on the continent’s future without America’s embrace.
By Mark Leonard, Constanze Stelzenmüller, Nathalie Tocci, Carl Bildt, Robin Niblett, Radoslaw Sikorski, Guntram Wolff, Bilahari Kausikan, Ivan Krastev, and Stefan Theil
No bloc of countries has, for the past 75 years, been as umbilically tied to the United States as Europe. First, its western half and, since the end of the Cold War, much of its eastern half have prospered under the world’s most extensive bonds in trade, finance, and investment. Europe could also depend on the U.S. military’s iron commitment—enshrined in the 75-year-old NATO alliance—to come to its defense. Together with a few other nations, the United States and Europe defined many of the institutions that comprise what we call the Western-led order. The U.S.-European alliance has arguably been the bedrock of the global system as we know it today.
Without Washington’s embrace, the continent could revert to an anarchic and illiberal past. By HAL BRANDS
Which is the real Europe? The mostly peaceful, democratic, and united continent of the past few decades? Or the fragmented, volatile, and conflict-ridden Europe that existed for centuries before that? If Donald Trump wins the U.S. presidential election in November, we may soon find out.
President Biden has offered help to undocumented spouses of U.S. citizens, in the most consequential act of immigration relief in more than a decade. By Jonathan Blitzer
Give now to get your name on the wing of a fighter jet!
In “Long Island Compromise,” wealth is a curse. Or is that just what we’d like to think?
After the election, populists of the right and left could hobble a centrist president
He has a domestic agenda, but no easy way to bring it about
American fried chicken can now be served from the Philippines
Deadly heat is increasingly the norm, not an exception to it
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As the hunt for habitable Earth-like planets stalls, astronomers are turning to bigger worlds
Four decades after his lab found odd, massive particles inside cells, Leonard Rome is still determined to figure out what “vaults” do
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Textile keeps its cool even when surrounded by urban surfaces that absorb and release heat.
Hubble observations of faint galaxies suggest that such objects could have been the seeds of very early supermassive black holes.
Findings support one idea about why self-directed immune responses are more common in some populations.
Samples taken near a capital of the pharaohs reveal an overhaul of the Nile 4,000 years ago.
Gamification was always just behaviorism dressed up in pixels and point systems. Why did we fall for it?
Kenyan runners, like many others, are grappling with the impact of expensive, high-performance shoes.
AI-powered NPCs that don’t need a script could make games—and other worlds—deeply immersive.
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