Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Thursday 28 May 2015


New on nybooks.com: The danger to the great ancient remains of Palmyra, an interview with filmmaker Hu Jie, magnificent photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope, and another look at John Berryman.
 
G.W. Bowersock
The fall of the ancient city of Palmyra before the brutal forces of ISIS last week raises a terrifying prospect.
 
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Ian Johnson
Hu Jie is one of China’s most noteworthy filmmakers, and recently he has produced a remarkable series of woodblock prints about the Great Leap famine.
 
Freeman Dyson
We imagined a universe of stars and galaxies gleaming brightly against a black sky. What we see is multicolored patterns of fluid motion, looking like eddies in a river or clouds in a sunset. The patterns are made of dust.
 
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Helen Vendler
Just over one hundred years ago, the remarkable poet John Berryman was born in McAlester, Oklahoma. The anniversary invites a second look at Berryman’s life, art, and reputation. His life makes for excruciating reading.
 
Jonathan Zimmerman: The Hudson River School’s most famous paintings have traveled from their home at the New-York Historical Society to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (through June 7)
 
Ruth Yeazell: An exhibit at the Yale Art Gallery elegantly demonstrates why some have thought Whistler’s handling of the burin even greater than his skill with the brush(through July 19)
 
Why has progress in climate change policy been so slow? If you read five books, you will find six theories.
William Nordhaus“A New Solution: The Climate Club”