The New Criterion
(Mobile Version)

February 2012 Volume 30, Number 6  

Notes & Comments

Romancing radicalism
On The New York Times's love letter to the Weather Underground member Judy Clark.

Helen Frankenthaler, 1928–2011
On the passing of the painter.


Features

Future tense, VI: Under the scientific Bo Tree
by Anthony Daniels
On the meaning in material world.

Christopher, for better & for worse
by Peter Collier
On the critic, polemicist & raconteur Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011).

Let's tickle the ivories
by David Dubal
On the joys of playing the piano.

At the Cafe Mirabell
by Thornton Wilder
An unpublished essay by the playwright and novelist.


Poems

At 89
by Daniel Hoffman

High summer, these islands
by Richard Tillinghast


Reconsiderations

Dwight Macdonald reconsidered
by John Simon
On the editor of the Partisan Review.


Theater

Todd is my slave name
by Kevin D. Williamson
On Seminar, Honeymoon Hotel & Lysistrata Jones.


Art

Two young artists
by Karen Wilkin
On “Rembrandt and Degas: Two Young Artists” at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA.

Exhibition note
by Leann Davis Alspaugh
On "New Formations: Czech Avant-Garde Art & Modern Glass from the Roy and Mary Cullen Collection” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Exhibition note
by Christie Davies
On “Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn, Ceramic Work 5000 B.C.–A.D. 2010” at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London & “The Flamboyant Mr. Chinnery: An English Artist in India and China” at Asia House, London.

Exhibition note
by Franklin Einspruch
On "Johann Zoffany RA: Society Observed” at the Yale Center for British Art.

Gallery chronicle
by James Panero
On “MIC:CHECK (occupy)” at Sideshow gallery, Brooklyn; “Gabriele Evertz: Rapture” at Minus Space, Brooklyn; “Lori Ellison” at McKenzie Fine Art, New York & “Halsey Hathaway and Gary Petersen: New Paintings” and “Paintings by Rob de Oude” at Storefront Bushwick, Brooklyn. 5 “Lee Bontecou: Recent Work: Sculpture and Drawing” opened at FreedmanArt, New York, on October 27, 2011 and remains on view through February 11, 2012.


Music

New York chronicle
by Jay Nordlinger


The Media

The left-wing fantasy
by James Bowman
On the myth of the Republican "theocracy."


Books

The persecution of Lord Black
by Andrew C. McCarthy

Lawrence's legacy
by David Pryce-Jones

Cherchez la femme
by Carl Rollyson

Fuller house
by Marc M. Arkin

Gigantic footprints
by Alexandra Mullen

Shorter notice
by Roger Kimball
A review of The Acceptance of Absurdity. Anthony Powell & Robert Vanderbilt Letters 1952-1963, edited by John Saumarez Smith & Jonathan Kooperstein.

Shorter notice
by James Panero


Notebook

A cack-handed genius
by Stefan Beck
I.M Ronald Searle, 1920–2011.