OPERA

I saw Faust last night from a wonderful seat in the President's Circle at the Four Seasons Centre. The story really grew on me over the course of the evening, and I thought the sets were excellent.





THINKING

Carbon dioxide is a by-product of just about every aspect of contemporary life—from driving and flying to farming and manufacturing and watching videos on YouTube. To reduce emissions by sixty per cent—or eighty per cent, as Senator Boxer advocates, or by two-thirds, as the McCain-Lieberman-Obama bill calls for—will thus require significant, and doubtless also disruptive, changes at every level of society. This may not seem an attractive prospect, but, as the latest I.P.C.C. report makes clear, change is not something that anyone at this point has a choice about. All that is at issue—and it is critically at issue—is how disastrous the change will be. Already enough CO2 has been pumped into the air to alter life on earth for thousands of years to come. To continue on our current path because the alternative seems like too much effort is not just shortsighted. It’s suicidal.

In an age of ephemera, Milan Kundera has long championed the permanence of art and the Flaubertian ideal of making every word count...

If a chardonnay tastes like peach, what does a peach taste like? If you like “chocolately” shiraz so much, why not just eat chocolate?...

Orbiting Junk, Once a Nuisance, Is Now a Threat

Looking forward to The Reminder.