Short Fuse

Book Review and Interview: “The Lost History of 1914” — Almost the War That Wasn’t

March 8, 2012
Posted in ,

In his exploration of history, Jack Beatty suggests that World War I, as we know it, was an improbable event.

Read More

Short Fuse: Jeremy Lin — Chess Fantasy

February 24, 2012
Posted in

jeremy lin & i played a few games. let me say, so far as xiangqi went, he wasn’t an all star. then again, neither was i.

Read More

Short Fuse Film Review: Getting to Know Paul Goodman

January 4, 2012
Posted in ,

Paul Goodman was a professed anarchist — not the bomb-throwing kind, who believe destruction is foreplay to solution, but the anti-violent kind, deriving from the nineteenth century Russian thinker, Kropotkin, who espoused cooperation among free individuals.

Read More

Short Fuse Review/Commentary: Steve Jobs and the Digital Acid Trip

December 19, 2011
Posted in ,

No doubt too much can be made out of Steve Jobs’s tripped-out youth, but also, too little. Jobs himself said: “Definitely, taking LSD is one of the most important things in my life.” He never recanted when it came to psychedelics, or disowned their influence.

Read More

Short Fuse Movie Review: “Hugo” Triumphant

December 6, 2011
Posted in ,

I had written Martin Scorsese off, and never expected he had a “Hugo” in him. That he did is the among the touching things in this film.

Read More

Short Fuse Book Review: Admiring “The Submission”

October 30, 2011
Posted in ,

“The Submission” has been compared to Richard Price’s richly evocative novels of New York life. It’s an apt comparison, though Amy Waldman brings a new cast of characters to bear, members of the Bangladeshi community.

Read More

Movie Review: Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975 — Scattered, Skewed, But Engaging

October 17, 2011
Posted in ,

This intriguing documentary, made up of first-hand footage about the Black Power movement, will air on WGBH’s Independent Lens this Thursday @ 10 p.m.

Read More

Short Fuse Review/Interview: Trotsky’s Revolutionary Life

October 2, 2011
Posted in ,

Joshua Rubenstein’s succinct account of Leon Trotsky’s life rescues the Russian radical from a remoteness, positioning him at a useful distance for contemporary readers

Read More

Short Fuse Book Review: “The Eichmann Trial” — Monster & Nonentity

September 7, 2011
Posted in ,

Author Deborah Lipstadt’s decision to confront a Holocaust denier in court prepared her, as little else might have, to appreciate and convey the vastly greater complexity and historical import of the Eichmann trial.

Read More

Short Fuse: Eternal Recurrence — Freud, Marx, Mao Zedong Thought

August 8, 2011
Posted in ,

What I do suspect though, and find evidence for in BLOODLUST is that Freud is immune to any final dispatch or disproof, and will likely, through one portal or another, go on reinserting himself into our culture.

Read More

Recent Posts