The continuing global relevance of Smith's ideas is quite astonishing, and it is a tribute to the power of his mind that this global vision is so forcefully presented by someone who, a quarter of a millennium ago, lived most of his life in considerable seclusion in a tiny coastal Scottish town. Smith's analyses and explorations are of critical importance for any society in the world in which issues of morals, politics and economics receive attention.
http://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2010/04/smith-market-essay-sentiments
Ben Macintyre's new book Operation Mincemeat details one of the most spectacular deceptions of World War II. Malcolm Gladwell uses the facts of the case to consider the thorny issues raised by spycraft, and in doing so draws on the ideas of PMD favorites Erving Goffman and James Jesus Angleton:
Any party to an intelligence transaction is trapped in what the sociologist Erving Goffman called an “expression game.” I’m trying to fool you. You realize that I’m trying to fool you, and I—realizing that—try to fool you into thinking that I don’t realize that you have realized that I am trying to fool you....Spymasters have always prided themselves on knowing where they are on the “I-know-they-know-I-know-they-know” regress....The proper function of spies is to remind those who rely on spies that the kinds of thing found out by spies can’t be trusted. If this sounds like a lot of trouble, there’s a simpler alternative. The next time a briefcase washes up onshore, don’t open it.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/05/10/100510crat_atlarge_gladwell
http://thesecondpass.com/?p=5596
RIP: Avigdor Arikha. The Romanian-born Israeli painter (1929-2010) followed interesting trajectories, from abstraction to realism, from painting to drawing back to painting. He was a very good friend of Samuel Beckett:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article7115893.ece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Arikha
This next item is somewhat ridiculous. The papers of a major Indian novelist, Raja Rao (1908-2006) are going begging for a home:
http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/201005a.htm#pn1
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/A-forgotten-Raja-/articleshow/5906330.cms
See, if I was wealthy, this is exactly the kind of thing that I would get involved in. I would buy up those papers lickety-split and donate them (with stipulations) to a worthy small institution. (I would also have financed Monte Hellman's planned film adaptation of Alain Robbe-Grillet's La Maison de Rendez-vous, simply because I would have wanted to see it.)
The blog Do the Math has a fine interview with Gerald Early about African-American literature and jazz. Hat tip to A Blog Supreme:
http://thebadplus.typepad.com/dothemath/2010/05/interview-with-gerald-early.html
Joe Magennis at Baseballisms interviews Jason Turbow, author of the new book The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime
. The first matter they discuss is the feud between Oakland A's pitcher Dallas Braden and New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez over Rodriguez's running across the sacred turf of the pitcher's mound during a game on April 22. Kudos, by the way, to Braden for his perfect game against Tampa Bay Rays this afternoon. http://baseballisms.com/podcast-author-jason-turbow.html
http://thebaseballcodes.com/
I'm interested in following the theatrical excursions of film actors, especially when, as in this case, the excursion involves an actor, Scott Caan, writing a play in which he does not star:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/05/theater-review-two-wrongs-at-the-lounge-theatre.html
Cult Movie Reviews gives credit to the aesthetic intentions of the late sexploitation film-maker Joe Sarno (1921-2010):
http://princeplanetmovies.blogspot.com/2010/05/passion-in-hot-hollows-1969.html?zx=e162491508f88e
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Sarno
Speaking of the aesthetically inscrutable film directors, I love the passage in Gilbert Adair's Flickers when he admits that no article he has ever read ("or, indeed, written") about Raul Ruiz has ever made his intentions clear. Sean Axmaker has written a review of a new Facets DVD of Ruiz's Dialogues of the Exiled:
http://www.tcm.com/movienews/index/?cid=312787
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