From The Global Spiral, William C. Chittick (Stony Brook): The Recovery of Human Nature; and an excerpt from John Lukacs's Last Rites. Make us look pretty: Bring the stimulus money to the little people by creating a Minister of Aesthetics. A review of The Euro: The Politics of the New Global Currency by David Marsh (and more and more). An interview with Mara Altman, author of Thanks for Coming: One Young Woman's Quest for an Orgasm. Vibrato Wars: Elgar, served neat and unshaken, stirs up the Brits. Handel, that powerhouse of Baroque music, has become a 21st-century superstar. From TLS, a review of Donald Brackett's Dark Mirror: The pathology of the singer-songwriter, and Johnson Bruce and Martin Cloonan's Dark Side of the Tune: Popular music and violence. A review of Dom Phillips' Superstar DJs Here We Go! From New York, here's a history of white people in rap. From New Statesman, a review of Celebrity: How Entertainers Took Over the World and Why We Need an Exit Strategy by Marina Hyde; and a look at how celebrities saved, then killed, the book trade. An interview with Eric Toussaint on how the socialist project has been betrayed and must be reinvented in the 21st century. The Talking Cure: Discussion of swine flu may have been hysterical, but it was necessary.
