The beetle quote has a profundity that outlasts it’s humor!

;-D

Yes, but they live in Brooklyn, with cats! Their minds may be affected by this. p

So do those disagreeing friends have better heated apparatments?

Schjeldahl on Tintoretto was not bad (I wish there were pictures accompanying the article of the paintings he discusses), but I don’t see how one can top imputing God with a great fondness for beetles!

Larissa MacFarquhar’s piece worked like chloroform on me, on the other hand. And it’s not like I’m incapable of reading long, dense, dry, texts. I felt like I was in one of those dreams where my legs get heavier and heavier till I can’t move. Agh! I can’t remember a thing about that article, except that I felt like I’d made a wrong turn in a dark forest and run out of gas.

Friends disagree, however. So, it could be my brain was frozen due to the inordinately low temperature in my building. I normally like her pieces.

The best line of the week was almost certainly contained in Rosen’s essay (unless it was in Schjeldahl), but there were almost too many to choose from.