Beautiful Agony Free Clip

The grid map of NYC has 200 years

Henry James condemned it a century ago as a "primal topographic curse." Rem Koolhaas , the architect and urbanist, countered that its two-dimensional form created "undreamed-of freedom for three-dimensional anarchy." More recently, two historians described its map, regardless of its flaws, as "the single most important document in New York City's development." ... The grid certified by the city's street commissioners on March 22, 1811 , spurred development by establishing seven miles of regular, predictable street access. It also laid the groundwork for nearly 2,000 acres of landfill that would be added to the island over the next two centuries. The commissioners Concluded That New York "is to be Principally Composed of the habitations of men, and That straight-sided and right-angled houses are cheap to build and The Most The Most convenient to live." nyt .

Free Clip Beautiful Agony

The State of Book Reviewing

Publishers Weekly has launched an interesting initiative: a series of interviews with reviewers' state of the review. " The first to be interviewed is Laura Miller of Salon . Here's what he says, among other things, "Your primary responsibility is to the reader. My friend Lev Grossman, the Time magazine book critic, has a motto that sums it up: Don’t lie . ... It's bad when an author gets a bad review he or she doesn't deserve, but it's bad for the overall ecology of book reviews, if a reviewer gives a book an unduly positive review. It establishes a climate of bad faith. This is something that has already happened; there's a feeling in the public that reviewers try to sell them on authors that aren't that good. That's one reason that professional reviews are becoming extinct: people don't trust them." Mi sembra quel che stia succedendo (anzi è successo) in Italia. Esiste ancora un recensore di cui fidarsi qui da noi?  PW .