The clip above comes via a wonderful Nick Paumgarten post at The New Yorker. As Paumgarten notes, it’s rare that film or TV captures the horrifying speeds — 70 to 90 mph at the Olympic level — at which downhill skiers actually race. Seventy to ninety, going down ridiculous slopes, with nothing controlling your speed […]
Continue reading →To Joshua Rothman, over at The New Yorker, “The Triple Package” might not be convincing as an argument about “the rise and fall of cultural groups in America,” but it’s valuable in another way: it offers a fascinating window onto a particular interpretation of family life. In this interpretation, parents see themselves as dangerous risk-takers […]
Continue reading →Caleb Carr on why he remains pessimistic about reading despite the recent National Endowment of the Arts report showing a reversal last year in a 25-year decline in reading. It’s a good consideration of several ways i which the data might be a mismeasure or a misleading anomaly.
Continue reading →