New York Review of Books

Larkin, Not Really in Translation

August 13, 2015 by William Eaton

“Counting” is a beautiful little Philip Larkin poem that I had not read before encountering it in a bilingual collection, with French translations: La vie avec un trou dedans. Thinking in terms of one Is easily done — One room, one bed, one chair, One person there, Makes perfect sense; one set Of wishes can be met, One coffin filled. But counting up to two Is harder to do; For one must be denied Before it’s tried. This may also […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: New York Review of Books, Philip Larkin, poetry, translation, Victor Hugo

What’s Holding Digital News Back?

June 2, 2015 by William Eaton

In the first of three articles in the New York Review of Books on “Digital Journalism: How Good Is It?” author Michael Massing gives himself this assignment: That digital technology is disrupting the business of journalism is beyond dispute. What’s striking is how little attention has been paid to the impact that technology has had on the actual practice of journalism. The distinctive properties of the Internet—speed, immediacy, interactivity, boundless capacity, global reach—provide tremendous new opportunities for the gathering and […]

Categories: ZiR • Tags: Edward R. Murrow, Internet, journalism, New York Review of Books, ProPublica

“I may not be able to read or write—but I have the capacity to die!”

February 11, 2015 by William Eaton

I come back to this famous photo, from 1960, of U.S. Marshals escorting Ruby Bridges, the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South. I come back to this photo after seeing documentary footage of Martin Luther King preaching, in April 1963, to black people in a church in Montgomery: You know when I say “Don’t be afraid,” you know what I really mean—don’t even be afraid to die! But I submit to you tonight, no man […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiLL • Tags: Civil Rights Movement, courage, documentaries, Martin Luther King, New York Review of Books, poor doors, Ruby Bridges, Selma, speeches

Of Dreamlessness

November 16, 2014 by William Eaton

Zeteo’s staff is a mix of the graduate-student aged and the emeritus aged, and this helps me (on the emeritus side) see more clearly where my generation is ending up. At a meeting the other day, one young staff member, whose great interest is participatory democracy, was expressing his hopes voire belief that electronic tools can facilitate a revival of participatory democracy. My sense is rather that we can already see, and will soon see more clearly, how electronic […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: dreams, education, New York Review of Books, youth

Reading 23-29 December 2012 (ZIR)

December 29, 2012 by William Eaton

Reading 23-29 December 2012 (ZiR) Texts William Eaton has been pleased to spend time with this week [One in an ongoing series of posts. For the full series see Zeteo is Reading.] 23 December 2012: Sort of coming to an end To a pre-Christmas dinner in Cambridge, Mass., I bring to my mother and one of my sisters copies of Wally Shawn’s Paris Review interview [Wallace Shawn, The Art of Theater No. 17]. I was alerted to this text by one […]

Categories: William Eaton, ZiR • Tags: art, education, Elizabeth Grosz, New York Review of Books, psychotherapy, sexual difference, sociology, Wallace Shawn, working class