PicoBlog

Leon Wieseltier is an accomplished editor with a vast knowledge of politics, culture and Jewish history. He was a prominent and powerful editor at The New Republic for three decades, from 1982-2014, before leaving over difference on editorial policy with new owners. He is now the editor of new quarterly, Liberties, which explores all manner of ideas. Watch the Full Episode Wieseltier has lived a much discussed personal lifestyle as he has made his way through the halls of academia, intellectual fellowship, and cultural influence.

My mind is so fried that I can’t recall if it was like this before social media, but it feels like a very modern thing the way we occupy our days between the truly big, horrible, sad, tragic, and truly world-changing events by loudly kvetching about small, usually stupid things. I’m not immune. A few months back, whenever the photos of Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein surfaced, I was one of those people who just had to chime in with some little joke about how bad his prosthetic nose looked.

Hello and welcome to Gossip Time, a weekly guide to the stars by Allie Jones. This week: an actor auditions a new girlfriend, a pop star insists she was never serious about her controversial ex-boyfriend, and Natalie Portman just smiles.  Paid subscribers got TWO exclusive posts this week: a meditation on the Taylor Swift and Matty Healy breakup (in collaboration with Hunter Harris of Hung Up) and a deep dive into the Natalie Portman marriage scandal.

I spent the day on campus today to attend Lerone Martin’s MLK Day lecture, “Soul Force: The Challenge of Martin Lulther King.” It was such an excellent talk that I wanted to share it with you as well. You can access it here (and also receive access to the rest of the January Series lectures, if you’d like). If the name Lerone Martin sounds familiar, it may be because I’ve written about his book The Gospel of J.

In the LP era, one disc you had to have was Swiss Movement, the concert tape of a 1969 gig at Montreux by Les McCann and Eddie Harris alongside Benny Bailey, Leroy Vinnegar, and Donald Dean. Merriam-Webster defines “zeitgeist” as “the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era.” This is a rare occasion when I can write the following cliché about music I really love: The opening track, “Compared to What,” absolutely captures some of that 1969-era zeitgeist.

Lesser Ladies’ Tresses is in bloom. I watch my step on the trail through the woods, careful not to trample the small stalk. It’s thin like a stick of incense. It’s an orchid! This orchid is not flamboyant. Rather, it is strikingly inconspicuous. This September, I have found only six, at widely spaced locations, and only along one path. But it’s lovely, with tiny blossoms spiraling around the top of the stem.

Despite having never been to Taiwan, I’ve been extremely interested in that country since the beginning of my journey with Mandarin. In fact, the very first time I thought Mandarin didn’t sound awful was through a song in Mandarin by the Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang (楊丞琳). That song was the trigger for me to get interested in Mandarin as a whole, although the first 8-9 years were completely focused on Mainland’s Simplified Chinese.

Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Sang Hyun Cho from PixabayDoubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. — Voltaire First comes ethics. You must have some guiding principle that helps you determine what is the more virtuous path, that is, what is the more decent, honorable, or noble thing to do. Without this guidance, there is confusion, chaos, and an inability to decide what is right and what is wrong.

No 1. If it costs you sunshine, relationships, or health, your salary is irrelevant For years, I believed a story that circulated throughout my agency and more broadly the marketing world: this would be the best job I’d ever have. I was terrified to quit because I believed the convenient lie that I’d never have it better. I’d never have more free lunches or airline miles or get to do something creative while also receiving unlimited PTO.