May 2013
1 post
For The New Yorker’s Elements blog, I wrote about the 3-D printing of guns and the ideology behind it.
A couple other recent things: watching the film “The Attack” with the Boston Marathon bombings in the background, and a panel debate about Zionism and liberalism.
April 2013
1 post
I reviewed Arnon Grunberg’s Tirza for this Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.
“Parental love is the sacrifice made in silence,” says Jorgen Hofmeester, the protagonist of “Tirza,” Arnon Grunberg’s latest translated novel. In “Tirza,” the quiet martyrdom of parenthood rubs up against the banality of bourgeois life. Sacrifices go un-repaid and...
March 2013
3 posts
Recent work
A review of William Gerhardie’s Futility.
On the new Philip Roth documentary.
A review of Douglas Rushkoff’s jargon-filled Present Shock.
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February 2013
4 posts
The year’s most accomplished, and most important, films about war, terrorism, and geopolitics aren’t Argo and Zero Dark Thirty. They’re two modestly budgeted films from Israel and the Palestinian Territories. And, unlike their American counterparts, they’re not drawing on true stories for blockbuster entertainment. No, they are the thing itself: blistering documentaries about life and death,...
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I reviewed David Shields’ How Literature Saved My Life for The Daily Beast:
David Shields is done with fiction, at least as you and I probably know it. After beginning his career as a novelist, the 56-year-old Shields, over the last decade and a half, has drifted toward loose, essayistic forms that tear down the walls between fact and fiction. (In fact, he claims that those walls never...
January 2013
11 posts
For The New Republic, I reviewed Andy Carvin’s book, Distant Witness: Social Media, the Arab Spring, and a Journalism Revolution.
And for Jewcy, I reviewed the new film Yossi, Eytan Fox’s sequel to his 2002 flick Yossi & Jagger.
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For the Los Angeles Review of Books, I wrote about Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger’s Jews and Words.
Perhaps no religion has as much existential uncertainty baked into the product as Judaism. Who, or what, is a Jew? The question remains Jewishness’s most persistent quandary. In modern times, this has not only been a theological or anthropological question but also a political and military...
Some Notes on a Book
Last month, I sold a proposal to HarperCollins for a book about social media and its role in online identity, privacy, self-expression, and Internet culture. All this began with my “Against Enthusiasm” essay in Slate, but I’m now looking more broadly at the attention and sharing economies; how (for some people) life becomes reconstituted around the ways in which we can...
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Juliann Garey impresses in sharp-tongued debut... →
My latest LAT review.
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December 2012
10 posts
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I wrote about the obsession with historical accuracy in this season’s holiday movies.
In the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, text flashes onto the screen: “1858. Two years before the Civil War.” Tarantino has not only given us the year, but also added its relation to an monumentally important event in American history. He assumed, perhaps correctly, that this...
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I wrote about my Sheldon Adelson complex.
The cartoonishly evil Sheldon Adelson is a Jewish conspiracy theory incarnated. Which is why, no matter how much I despise his politics, election season bankrolling, and ethically dubious gambling empire, I can’t shake a creeping sense of tribal defensiveness when he’s depicted at his worst.
You can read the rest here.
November 2012
6 posts
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For the Poetry Foundation, I wrote about the short life and career of poet Samuel Greenberg and the critical debate over his influence.
I also contributed to Slate’s list of the overlooked books of 2012.
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I wrote about what it feels like to watch a war in real-time, to be taken to the limits of spectatorship:
War has always been something of a spectator affair, if not downright voyeuristic. On July 21, 1861, during the First Battle of Bull Run, some well-to-do Washingtonians brought their families to picnic near the battle site, anticipating a Union rout of Confederate forces. The battle turned...
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Body Counts
Like many, I’m deeply immersed in the coverage of Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza and the volleys of rocket fire from Hamas. In most media accounts, continuing a practice that has been in place since time immemorial, the deaths of women and children are counted separately from those of men (e.g. “Palestinian Health Minister says number of killed in Gaza since start of operation...
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For Open Zion, I wrote about dueling protests in front of the Israeli consulate in New York.
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Roberto Bolaño's 'Woes of the True Policeman' a... →
For the LA Times, I wrote about the latest—and possibly the final—Roberto Bolaño novel. I also argued that his publishers need to offer more scholarly and critical material with these unfinished works.
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I talked to Yael Kohen about We Killed: The Rise of Women in American Comedy.
October 2012
6 posts
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Shani Boianjiu and the Problems of Youth →
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For Bookforum, I reviewed David Nutt’s Drugs Without the Hot Air, a stellar primer on drugs policy and pharmacology. Nutt is a British scientist and former drugs policy advisor who was sacked for publishing an article claiming that ecstasy was safer than horseback riding, as well as for advocating for a more empirically minded drugs policy. (For example, he thought that cannabis should...
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Oren Makes Friends, Not News →
The Israeli ambassador visits Park Slope.
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Edwidge Danticat and Salman Rushdie share stories... →
My latest for Capital.
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I wrote about Norman Mailer, Jewish manhood, and the porn star James Deen.
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The New York Times gathered some writers and artists to answer the question, “Do we need professional critics?” Here’s my response.
For Open Zion, I wrote about Norman Finkelstein’s appearance at The New School and considered whether he’s moving towards the mainstream of American Jewry.
[photo via Corey Templeton]
September 2012
4 posts
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For Capital, I talked to Ben Acker and Paul F. Tompkins about the Thrilling Adventure Hour, a stage show and podcast that’s about to make its NYC debut.
I also recently reviewed the documentary Tears of Gaza, which raises some interesting questions about foregoing context and trying to wring as much pathos as possible out of a political tragedy.
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For The Daily Beast, a review of Pankaj Mishra’s From the Ruins of Empire.
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For Slate, I wrote about four novels about the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last week Chad Post and Tom Roberge had me on the Three Percent podcast, and we talked about literary criticism, author promotion, and why they don’t mind picking favorites from their employers’ catalogs.
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Some New Stuff
I appeared on the Australian radio program Books and Arts Daily to talk about RJ Ellory’s sock puppetry, literary criticism online, and more. Books and Arts Daily is also available on iTunes.
I wrote about the Jews of Boardwalk Empire.
And my review of Stephen Graham’s Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism, which ran in The New Inquiry’s Cops issue last month, is now...
August 2012
7 posts
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For Jewcy, I wrote about Andy Zaltzman, the British comedian who’s one half of the comedy podcast The Bugle.
Recently I appeared on Dave Greenwald’s new podcast, talking about the effects of Twitter, Internet culture, and a crummy journalistic economy on literary and music criticism.
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For Bookforum, I reviewed Joe Sacco’s Journalism, a collection of his magazine stories.
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For Tablet, I wrote about Danilo Kiš, focusing on three newly translated books out this month from Dalkey Archive.
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A couple attempts at satire: The New Inquiry put online my leaked memorandum from a drone/defense contractor. That originally appeared in last month’s issue of the magazine. And for Jewcy, I took a journey to the end of praise, writing about my attempt to catalog all of Gary Shteyngart’s blurbs.
