March 2000
In This Issue
Eyal Press and Jennifer Washburn, “The Kept University”; J. Bottum, “The Soundtracking of America”; Jim Myers, “Notes on the Murder of Thirty of My Neighbors”; Chitra Divakaruni, “Uncertain Objects of Desire”; and much more.
Articles
The Third Generation
She was a Holocaust princess, their living memorial candle, continuity. Who would have predicted that she would turn her back on her people to become a nun in, of all places, the convent at Auschwitz?
The Kept University
Commercially sponsored research is putting at risk the paramount value of higher education—disinterested inquiry. Even more alarming, the authors argue, universities themselves are behaving more and more like for-profit companies
Uncertain Objects of Desire
In India, a country that straddles the old and the new, a good place to look for signs of shifting values might be the matrimonial columns of The Times of India
The Soundtracking of America
Music made sense when the world did. Now the sense is gone, but the melody lingers on -- everywhere. We live surrounded by music, from torch songs at Starbucks to the Beatles in the elevator, and the barrage may be turning our minds to mush
Notes on the Murder of Thirty of My Neighbors
Killing sprees in suburban schools are rare and shocking events. Imagine, then, living in a neighborhood where a sign in a laundromat asks patrons to be sure, before putting their clothes in the wash, to empty all pockets of bullets
The Joy of Sexing
Sixty years spent telling one newly hatched bird from the next
What Makes History
The lessons of a New England landscape
Spring
The Edge of the World
Tasmania is the Australia, in miniature, that tourists travel so far to see
Resurrecting Fats
New transcriptions of Fats Waller's pipe-organ and piano solos could ensure that Waller is remembered not just as an entertainer but as a great composer
Extreme Stargazing
A race to spot 110 designated celestial objects in the time between dusk and dawn
John O'Hara's Protectorate
His undisguised longing for acclaim still keeps John O'Hara from being the favorite son of the place he defined
The Future Did Not Work
Brief Reviews
by Da Chen. Random House, 320 pages, $25.00.
77 North Washington Street
Letters to the Editor
The Almanac
Word Improvisation
