In Which We Need Physics More Than Friends

The Week in Review

We are the two great painters of this era; you in the Egyptian style, I in the modern style.

- Henri Rousseau to Pablo Picasso

Today we have the distinct pleasure of welcoming longtime contributor Durga Chew-Bose to our masthead as our new senior editor. Her duties are sure to include sifting through our rejects pile and maintaining one of the many Marly Guthrie fan pages that seem to be sprouting up lately. But in all seriousness we're very enthused by what Durga will be bringing in her new role. Originally from Montreal, Durga now lives in Brooklyn. Please welcome her aboard by quietly viewing this photograph of her and her brother, and maybe writing a short memoir about it.

Enjoy the best of the week and change that was:

John Ashbery's immortal essay on Fairfield Porter...

Owen Roberts went to Shanghai, primarily so you don't have to...

Jessica Ferri's magical adventures in babysitting...

Arianna Stern's adventure in San Francisco...

Emily Gould on Graham Nash and Joni Mitchell...

Tiger Woods debuted on This Recording to explain it all like Clarissa...

The disturbing relationship of Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett...

James Agee's plans for work were truly inspirational and among the greatest essays of this century...

Orson Welles wanted to make the best version of Macbeth ever, and they wouldn't let him...

Ben Gibbard has a really questionable marriage but pretty good taste in music...

Almie went to Las Vegas and things got realer than you might imagine...

The angle of the nipple was the main focus of Yvonne's childhood...

Tyler Coates found all the right things to say about Greenberg.

You can find previous editions of Week in Review here.

"Our Whole Lives" - The Hold Steady (mp3)

"A Slight Discomfort" - The Hold Steady (mp3)

"Barely Breathing" - The Hold Steady (mp3)

In Which If We Leave Tonight Then We Leave It All Behind

The Week in Review

Sometimes you feel like Pat Nixon; at other times you feel like her cat Morpheus. You deserve some time for yourself. Write an essay in the second person and see if it doesn't propel you into an unexpected relationship with someone who believes it's addressing them. It worked for Jay McInerney, he's now married to Anne Hearst. It can work for you. But before you sit down to write, we permit you to become inspired by these delights:

Tyler Coates' magnificent essay about his dad...

Elizabeth Gumport takes a retrospective look at where we went wild...

Teghan Beaudette's list of important turn-offs...

We remembered the straight genius of The Pixies...

Dick Cheney's Lost reviews reached legendary proportions...

Alex Carnevale on the history of Narcotics Anonymous...

Kanye West's iTunes playlist...

Sarah Amandolare's New York love story...

Molly Lambert changes science forever to make it more enjoyable...

The strangest finale of The Bachelor yet recorded...

Ellen Copperfield's hilarious memoriam for Tom Hanks' career...

Molly Lambert isolates the best parts of popular rap songs...

Leo Tolstoy was such an asshole...

Elena Schilder on the secret Richard Ford...

Amanda McCleod on the Whitney Biennial...

The love lives of our betters...

A May-December romance to forget.

"Land of Feeling" - Here We Go Magic (mp3)

"F.F.A.P." - Here We Go Magic (mp3)

"Moon" - Here We Go Magic (mp3)

"Old World United" - Here We Go Magic (mp3)

In Which We'll Be Home For Christmas

The Week in Review

We have entered the giving holiday season here at This Recording. I thought it was a dirty little secret that Santa gave Jewish children coal in their stockings, but it turned out my mother was just screwing with me all those years. Things rarely seem as hilarious at the time, and Jackie Kennedy's last happy holiday moments with her husband weren't all shits and giggles. At least there was little in the way of porn stars back then.

kennedy christmas card for 1962In the haze of Christmas morning, I also believed Jesus was a satanic elf for a brief period in the late 1980s. Times were hard, our idea of Christmas was relatively inflexible and included a menorah largely for giggles. For a country like ours to survive this difficult period, we must avoid playing jokes on our Jewish sons, and harken back to the Christmas of olde.

Enjoy our week of holiday-based content:

The wonders of depression-era dating according to Meredith Chamberlain...

We unveiled the top 20 albums of the year...

Ray Zhong on Jason Reitman's Up in the Air...

Almie Rose on the promiscuous, sex positive Grace Kelly...

William Gass' letter for the ages...

All the vampires left New York...

Eleanor Morrow on the films of Yasujiro Ozu...

The aging oeuvre of Nancy Meyers...

The story of Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud...

The young auteurs of You Won't Miss Me...

Tao Lin discussed Thomas Bernhard...

Rufus Wainwright's iTunes playlist...

Elaine de Kooning remembered Mark Rothko...

Bob Dylan met John Lennon...

You can catch up on past Week in Reviews here.

"The Children" - Yeasayer (mp3)

"Madder Red" - Yeasayer (mp3)

"I Remember" - Yeasayer (mp3)

harry truman taking a christmas break in independence