By: Joe Alterio

At one point in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard (1950), we find washed-up silent film stars literally and figuratively playing out their last hands. A small ashen-faced man declines to bid on consecutive hands, and with […]

By: Matthew Battles

Electronica composer John Boswell remixes the preambles and perorations of Carl Sagan for a groovy take on the wonder-struck spiritual cosmology at the heart of the landmark PBS series Cosmos. With a guest appearance by […]

By: Joe Alterio

Brilliant at breaking down everyday life into discrete moments.

By: Joshua Glenn

Ringtone: “The Twist”

By: Matthew Battles

“Exile—Exile,” gabbled the Ape-man.

By: Joshua Glenn

Skrulls hiding in great works of literature

By: Franklin Bruno

Like Bea Arthur, Pearl Bailey, and Redd Foxx, the televisual omnipresence of JULIUS “NIPSEY” RUSSELL (1918?-2005) belied his status as a veteran of less sanitized showbiz pursuits. He tap-danced his way out of his native […]

By: Matthew Battles

THE BOOK Terms of Service Statement of Rights and Responsibilities This statement of the terms of service of The Book is derived from principles of the public sphere, covered in the U.N. Declaration of Human […]

By: Patrick Cates

He was a violent husband (to four different wives) who managed his depression by consorting with an astrologer; and a drug-abusing freemason who dealt with his self-induced heart condition by consorting with a psychic healer. […]

By: Matthew Battles

We’ve been reading news today about music composed for monkeys. Most animals don’t respond to music. But is that because music per se is incomprehensible to them, or because it’s customarily created from the spectrum […]

By: Joshua Glenn

I’ve been watching a lot of movies on my desktop, lately, via Netflix: Watch Instantly. Works great. The only problem is, the selection is quite limited, so I end up watching movies I’ve never heard […]

By: Greg Rowland

All hail the Mighty Fin! For was it not JIMMY FINLAYSON (1887-1953), third banana in 33 Laurel and Hardy films, who offered us emancipation through his unique enactment of The Double Take & Fade Away? […]

By: Annie Nocenti

“My nose is blown, doc,” mopes a bandaged bloodhound cop as he sags against a panel border. In “No Nose is Good Nose,” Dr. Howland Owl laughs at the patient, violating his “hippocritical oaf.” Set […]

By: Douglas Wolk

OGDEN NASH (1902-71) was the American master of light verse, an art that has fallen on hard times, since it requires both gentle jokes that everyone can find amusing and barnstorming verbal agility of the […]

By: Matthew Battles

LONG BEFORE PRISON, Martha Stewart proposed and then dropped a plan to endow the Martha Stewart Professorship in Home Economics at the Harvard Business School. Evidently, Ms. Stewart wanted not only to fund the chair, […]