"Peninsular Puzzle: A foreigner attempts to untangle the paradoxes of Italy"
October 11, 2004  | View article (630 KB)
Reviews "The Dark Heart of Italy," by Tobias Jones, an Englishman journalist who moved to Parma
and then peregrinated all over Italy in a multifaceted quest to understand his new homeland.

"Art and Artifice" | November, 09 2003  | View article (215 KB)
Reviews "Disarmed: The Story of the Venus de Milo," a book that traces the famous statue's path
from the isle of Melos to the Louvre, detailing the feuds and furores surrounding it afterward. Launching
from that tale, I touched upon how context shapes every artwork's existence.

"An Economist Quantifies Inspiration" | May 12, 2002  | View PDF (58 KB)
Kneecaps "Painting between the Lines," by University of Chicago economist David Galenson. The premise: That
one can determine an artist's most innovative period via his auction history. I disagreed heartily. However,
Galenson's distinction between "conceptual innovators" and "experimental innovators" is a useful paradigm.

"Perspectives on Art" | November 19, 2001  | View text-only PDF (215 KB)
My ConArt pseudo-manifesto, launched off of reviewing Larry Shiner's excellent "The Invention of Art: A Cultural
History" and Wendy Steiner's more scattershot "Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in 20th-Century Art."

"Examining The Dreams That Shaped America: Zachary Karabell sees a nation of visionaries"
 August 19, 2001  | View PDF (20 KB)
Reviews Karabell's "Visionary America," which breaks American history into periods driven by visions such as
Individualism, Expansion, and The Market. An interesting but failed bid at popularized historical theory.

"A Detailed New Biography Illuminates The Sad Life Of A Master Storyteller."
 May 2001  | View PDF (21 KB)
A very appreciative review for Jackie Wullschlager's excellent biography of Hans Christian Andersen,
inventor of the modern fairytale and easily one of literature's most tortured souls. Is that ironic?

"Close Encounter: A Beltway satire complete with media pundits, secret agents
and, of course, space aliens." 
 April 1999  | View PDF (16 MB)
In which I review Christopher's Buckley's archly observed but narratively thin "Little Green Men."