The New Yorker, 2006-09-28

[fiefoe]

"Franco-American Dept: Mrs. B.H.L" / Rebecca Mead

__ The effect is as if Marilyn Monroe had attempted to channel Edith Piaf; and Dombasle, who is forty-eight and has long, honey-blond hair, a pronounced pout, and what has plausibly been described as the smallest waist in Paris...

"Mind Games" / John Cassidy

__ In the brain, oxytocin is involved in social recognition and bonding, and might be involved in the formation of trust between people.
__ Reforming 401(k) plans is an example of “asymmetric paternalism,” a new political philosophy based on the idea of saving people from the vagaries of their limbic regions.

"The Wanderer" / David Remnick

__ This is great. When I was President . . .” <> The band started a strangely Teutonic version of “Bohemian Rhapsody”—Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?—drowning him out for a moment.
__ Oh Hell—a lesser cousin of contract bridge.
__ He was projecting fixed engagement with the same intensity with which Nancy Reagan used to project adoration.

"Something That Needs Nothing" / Miranda July

• Everything that we had always thought of as "The World" was actually the result of someone's job.
• Her age was difficult to determine from our vantage point- a point in our lives when we could not bring older bodies into focus.
  
• The idea of wealth always calmed me down.
  
• In truth, I had not yet learned how to hate anyone but my parents. I was actually just standing there in love.
• We were always getting away with something, which implied that someone was always watching us, which meant that we were not alone in this world.
• Mostly what we had was a lot of pieces of wood; they leaned against the walls and lay across the couch like untrained dogs.
  

[Jean Genet:] I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty-a sunken beauty.
marmoreal, tour d'horizon

<<