The group of fish that moved onto land gave rise to almost half of all vertebrates today, including all amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and us. And although we probably cannot trace our family tree directly back to Tiktaalik, “an animal very much like Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor of humans,” said Julia Molnar, an evolutionary biomechanist at the New York Institute of Technology.
If Tiktaalik is our ancestor, then perhaps our holding it accountable for the chaos it sowed is an expression of love.
“Can somebody dim the Dan Flavin?” It’s not a request one generally hears at a restaurant, but on the inaugural preview night at Brutalisten, the artist Carsten Höller was pulling cords from their sockets at random, still working out a few kinks at his restaurant, including toning down the glaring fluorescent tubes of the Minimalist masterpiece on the dining room’s wall.
Most kinks had already been dekinked, with a miraculous same-day installation of Mr. Höller’s made-to-measure furnishings just before guests arrived, and the staff, outfitted in his custom-designed gray boiler suits, was unflappably cheery.
Yet what makes Kawakami’s novel so brilliant is an understanding of why women might willingly adhere to regressive modes of performative femininity, even while they criticize it. The desire to be loved is no small thing.
Magpie shocks and distresses in a way that only good psychological thrillers can, but it also provides a catharsis, depicting the frustrations of womanhood in all forms. It also shows that, when faced with motherhood, a woman will do absolutely anything in her power to protect what she has.
It has been a while since front pages were dominated by mob wars and Mafiosi bodies strewn across city pavements. So Gleeson’s book, “The Gotti Wars: Taking Down America’s Most Notorious Mobster,” is a useful reminder, especially for Mafia romanticizers, that we’re dealing with sociopathic knuckle scrapers who settle scores with casual brutality. Gotti was no exception, never mind the “Dapper Don” image he cultivated, that of a wisecracking wiseguy with a knack for beating the rap.
Why is the Anglo-Saxon world so individualistic, and why has China leaned towards collectivism? Was it Adam Smith, or the Bill of Rights; communism and Mao? According to at least one economist, there might be an altogether more surprising explanation: the difference between wheat and rice. You see, it’s fairly straightforward for a lone farmer to sow wheat in soil and live off the harvest. Rice is a different affair: it requires extensive irrigation, which means cooperation across parcels of land, even centralised planning. A place where wheat grows favours the entrepreneur; a place where rice grows favours the bureaucrat.