The Stack
By Tom Teicholz at 27 January, 2008, 7:40 pm
At The Sunday New York Times — seems like late January is NEW NOVELIST MONTH at the NYT, (and at publishing houses for that matter) what with the recent feature on Jim Collins’ “Beginner’s Greek”, and this Sunday’s Book review of Tod Wodlicka’s “All Shall Be Well,” and the Charles McGrath article in the Sunday Magazine about Charles Bock’s novel, “Beautiful Children.”
The Arts & Leisure also had a great feature on Robert Capa‘s lost suitcase of negatives which has been recently turned over to the International Center of Photography (which, in turn, was run for many years by Capa’s brother Cornell Capa). Need I mention that the Robert Capa was born in Budapest, Hungary as Endre Erno Friedmann. Cornell was also born Friedmann, but kept his first name. And although you might not think Cornell a Jewish first name, it was quite popular at the beginning of the 20th Century in Budapest — it was also my grandfather’s name.
Medicine & Its Alternatives.
An interesting review by Jerome Groopman on “The Cure Within: A history of Mind- Body Medicine” By Anne Harrington. Harrington is the editor of a book on “The Placebo Effect.” How alternative medicine came to be preferred to a visit to an M.D, and became a $40 billion business is worth pondering. An article I read recently made the point that many alternative medicines work because of the placebo effect — that is the belief that they do work is so great, that when the person feels better and eventually is better, they attribute it to the alternative treatment.Everyone knows an alternative treatment that works, and everyone has a “miracle” healing story. The question is to how to set those in context.
Speaking of Groopman, his article on business-like approaches to cancer-cures in The New Yorker, “Buying a Cure,” (Jan 28th issue) was fascinating — and presents a different front of attack on current medical/scientific research practice — one that while not yeilding “cures” certainly seems to be keeping some cancer patients alive a lot longer — for which we may all be grateful.
The Sunday LA Times had an interesting feature on “Gossip Girl” and its failure to attract a large audience, despite all its buzz and success on other “platforms” (i.e. the internet). I confess that “Gossip Girl” is my guilty pleasure but the article does beg the looming question — if everything migrates to the internet, can any of it succeed — and if so, how?
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