Apr 30, 2022
No first glimpse of a building was more exhilarating to me than his 1975 Best Products facade in Houston, designed with his firm, SITE. And he did it the old-fashioned way: “I’m probably the last architect on earth who still draws by hand.” Ideas and how they get that way, presented with the National Academy of...
Apr 23, 2022
Pairing a concert pianist with a stage magician means merging distinct performance traditions and can include tensions as well as triumphs. Perhaps that’s why their act is sometimes billed as Magic versus Music—a joke that is not entirely a joke. But what a show! Presented with Ralph Farris of the quartet Ethel.
Apr 17, 2022
He’s made a lot of films about war, from the Civil War to Vietnam, but his great themes are not death and destruction, he says: “Most of my films, despite the particular subject matter, besides the tragedy or the conflict, are ultimately about love.” He’s currently working on the Revolutionary War. It’s...
Apr 9, 2022
This naturalist and writer is wary of “bad people having their names attached to perfectly good birds.” Audubon’s warbler evokes not just an ornithologist but also a slave-owner. “We should remove all human names from birds and let the birds tell us who they are—by their appearance, their behavior, their...
Apr 2, 2022
New York City’s health commissioner during the first two years of the pandemic—he stepped down on March 15—says he sees something admirable in our response: “We have gotten vaccinated not just to protect ourselves but to protect our communities.” Well, yes, if we have gotten vaccinated, says dour me, who sees...