Robert BirnbaumSep 6, 20193 minOlivia Parker Order of ImaginationApparently having developed adult onset agoraphobia I am disinclined to venture to public spaces. Which provides me with convenient exp...
Robert BirnbaumAug 28, 20194 minToo Much History, Not Enough Story📷 I can't recall the topic of his New Yorker piece but what I do remember was Nicholas Lehmann relating an anecdote about helping his so...
Robert BirnbaumJul 27, 201924 minYippie: RIP Paul KrassnerThere is indeed a business like show business. It's the news. Paul Krassner The YIPPIE logo was comprised of three elements— green marij...
Robert BirnbaumJun 29, 20195 minHow The Light Gets InThe main thing that troubled me about the Nobel being awarded to Bob Dylan was not that his immense talent and momentous body of work wer...
Robert BirnbaumJun 11, 20194 minWhen They See Us...Apparently former prosecutor Linda Fairstein's career in fiction began before she wrote the first of her 22 crime novels. As Ava DuVernay...
Robert BirnbaumJun 10, 201913 minScratch Pad #105While it is accepted wisdom that the infoshitstream known as the Internet is chock-a -block with galaxies of debris (and worse), it is al...
Robert BirnbaumMay 19, 201924 minJulie Orringer Conversates with Our Man In BostonThe author of a newly published novel, The Flight Portfolio, chats with Robert Birnbaum, your man in Boston, back in 2003 when her publi...
Robert BirnbaumApr 18, 20193 minThe Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (German: Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon) History repeats itself, "the first as tragedy, then as farce ." Karl Marx I have not understood the the cultural preoccupation (The Walk...
Robert BirnbaumApr 12, 201912 minPaul Buhle: A People's HistorianUniversity of Wisconsin alumnus Paul Buhle has edited /authored nearly 40 books. He launched the Students for a Democratic Society's jou...
Robert BirnbaumApr 7, 20195 minScratch Pad The buzzing blooming confusion... There are a multitude of millennial scamsters Elizabeth Holmes, Martin Shkreli Dan Mallory, Anna Delvey...
Robert BirnbaumApr 4, 20194 minNot The New York Times Book Review (4 April 2019)"Reading, in the deepest, most difficult, ultimately satisfying sense is, and always was, the craft of an elite, but, in spite of what de...
Robert BirnbaumMar 24, 20192 minEugene V Debs, Patriarch of Social DemocracyOn November 18, 1918, Eugene V Debs was sentenced to ten years in prison and disenfranchised for life. Debs presented what has been calle...
Robert BirnbaumMar 21, 20196 minScratch Pad March 2019Some days the personal narrative and accompanying cogitation skews asymmetrical and unruly. Making a report (if asked—as in "What did y...
Robert BirnbaumMar 13, 201926 minCharles McCarry, "Poet Laureate” of American Spy Writers On a pleasant day in August, 2004 I drove across Massachusetts to chat with author Charles McCarry. After reading Shelley's Heart, I w...
Robert BirnbaumMar 11, 20194 minNot The New York Times Book Review* (11 March 2019)One of the most frequent comments I hear everywhere, right up there with “what’s for dinner” and “I want to be somebody” is “I don’t have...
Robert BirnbaumMar 3, 201927 minLet's Play 162: Baseball 2019"The sports team from my locale is superior to the sports team from your locale" Izzy Birnbaum This year's hot stove league was rather te...
Robert BirnbaumFeb 21, 20193 minNot The New York Times Book Review (20 Feb. 2019)*“When a man is young he needs many, many books and when he is old he needs only a few books". Rainer Maria Rilke The steady stream of boo...
Robert BirnbaumFeb 5, 201927 minJim Harrison, "The Last Lion"*When I learned that my 2004 conversation with Jim Harrison was to be included in an updated edition of Conversations with Jim Harrison (p...
Robert BirnbaumJan 27, 201913 minCoffee Table GalleryThere was a time—actually for a lengthy period—that I disparaged the use of lists in culture/ critical journalism, believing they were a ...
Robert BirnbaumDec 17, 201825 minSiempre Sigrid: Chatting with Sigrid NunezA New York Times recent profile of this year's National Book Award for Fiction recipient, Sigrid Nunez, is headlined "With ‘The Friend,’ ...