The Brooklyn Rail

Scratch the glittering hide of the most successful artist and you’ll probably find a bruised little outcast lurking inside, still smarting from some long-ago snub.

When we look at the sad, often ridiculous, lives of the great ceremonial magicians, it is obvious, in any conventional sense of success—wealth or happiness—that magic doesn’t work.

I haven’t read The Da Vinci Code, but I have read a lot of Nerve.com/Salon.com profiles of women who have. Apparently they liked it a lot. It’s curious how consistently the curve of reading material ascends among the Last Great Book You Read on these profiles.

Round up of current goings on in the world of documentaries.

Subway Cinema will be bringing the best (and wackiest) of Asian pop cinema to our doorstep with their 5th annual New York Asian Film Festival.