Philip Eil
By Philip Eil
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Culture The ‘Lolita’ Story Nabokov Kept Hidden
Editor’s Note: On this date in 1958, Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita” was published. Today, we return to our coverage of Sarah Weinman’s “The Real Lolita,” which looked at that book’s real-life inspiration. Sarah Weinman probably reads more than you do. According to tallies she has shared on Twitter (where she has more than 400,000 followers), she…
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Culture After The American Dream, Is There Anywhere To Go But Down?
A couple of years ago, while conducting genealogical research online, I stumbled across an extraordinary document. It was a called a “Declaration of Intention” from the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and it was signed, in a wobbly hand, by my great-grandfather, Charles Eil. By signing the form on that day — October 4, 1909…
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Culture Susan Orlean On Her Passion For Books And Judaism
On April 29, 1986, a massive fire ripped through the Los Angeles Public Library’s central branch. During the nearly eight hours that the fire raged, temperatures reached 2,500 degrees, 350 firefighters reported to the scene, shelves collapsed,3 million gallons of water were expended, and two acres of plastic sheeting were deployed to try to salvage…
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Culture The ‘Lolita’ Story Nabokov Kept Hidden
Sarah Weinman probably reads more than you do. According to tallies she has shared on Twitter (where she has more than 400,000 followers), she read 462 books in 2008, 400 books in 2010, 340 books in 2011 and 380 books in 2013. She started reading at two and a half years of age, she explained…
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Culture Is It Kosher For A Jew To Love Gospel Music?
Synagogue was never a particularly religious place for me. The songs, prayers and rituals I observed and participated in at my hometown Conservative synagogue just never really did it for me. By “it,” I mean the feeling that I always sensed I was supposed have inside that building with the stained-glass windows, wood-backed pews and…
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Culture Is There Really Such A Thing As Jewish Anxiety?
I am an anxious Jew. By which I mean (a) I am Jewish, and (b) if I had to pick the overarching emotional theme of my life, it would be fear. Or worry. Or panic. One of my first memories is a pediatrician’s visit where I was so scared of an impending vaccination that I…
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Culture Is Dave Zirin The Most Important Sportswriter In America?
One day last October, Gregg Popovich, the longtime coach of the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, made a phone call to Dave Zirin, sports editor of the magazine The Nation. President Trump — while embroiled in a mini-scandal about his delayed public response to the death of American troops during combat operations in the African country…
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Culture The Jewish Picasso Is Finally Ready For His Close-Up
A Twenty Minute Silence Followed By Applause By Shawn Wen Sarabande Books, 131 pages, $15.95 In 1974, the legendary mime Marcel Marceau appeared in a TV advertisement for Xerox color copy machines. The ad lasted 90 seconds, during which — as the writer Shawn Wen describes in her recent book on Marceau, “A Twenty Minute…
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