“the dog trots freely in the street and sees reality …

drunks in doorways and moons on trees”
—Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Boston Globe film critic Michael Blowen proposes a national film registry to protect certain movies we love from being remade.

Younger authors assess Martin Amis, enfant terrible of English letters whom nearly all of them love to hate. I’m not too proud to admit I love and devour his work. Amis’ “much-hyped” autobiography is imminent.

Enjoy the Show. Test Will Follow. Awhile ago I logged the arrival of the play Copenhagen, about Werner Heisenberg. And several days ago I logged an essay about the literary abuses of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Now the New York Times does man-on-the-street interviews with theater patrons to see what they understand of the physics behind the play. As suggested the other day, without understanding quantum physics, Heisenberg uncertainty becomes just a metaphor, and an overused one at that. If all you’re saying is that the observer affects the process observed, why try so hard?

One reader of this blog wrote to say that this discussion of the uncertainty principle reminds him of a pet peeve he has about the frequent use of “one-dimensional” in literary criticism. From his understanding of geometry, he’s sure the writers mean to say two-dimensional, as in lacking depth. That one doesn’t bother me as much as the misuse of the uncertainty principle does, because to speak of “dimensions” isn’t necessarily using (misusing) a geometric metaphor; the word has a commonsense meaning as well. A character, or a plotline, may well be only one-dimensional in that common sense of the word, e.g. reduced to only one conflict.

I haven’t been much interested in city planning and I know next to nothing about architecture, but this essay was fascinating and worthwhile (I did grow up in New York, though…) New

York to Architecture: Drop Dead! “A new proposal to overhaul the city’s

zoning laws is now forcing New Yorkers to confront these

fundamental questions. Titled the Uniform Bulk Program, the

proposal amounts to the architectural manifesto of the Giuliani

administration — a major statement on the most famous skyline

in the universe.” Three major provisions — a height limit on new buildings, a requirement that buildings extend out to the street (effectively reversing the mandate in previous zoning regulations that plazas and parks be included in development plans as a “trade” for height), and the establishment of a review board under the control of a political appointee — will “turn the city planning chairman into the design czar of New York, with sweeping powers to define the cityscape for years to come.” When does government regulation of architecture become akin to trampling on constitutionally guaranteed free expression?