There comes a point in life when one tends to get lazy about culture. Aesthetic entropy sets in. One loses the resolve to take on Tolstoy’s novels in the original Russian, to master the Goldberg Variations on the harpsichord, to write an epic poem, to reinterpret the prophetic works of Blake. When this happens, it seems to me that one has the option of lapsing into one of two forms of dilettantism: operatic or architectural. Neither is very demanding if pursued correctly and both offer a simulacrum of cultivation.

Literary Review

Jun 1990

Categories

Jim Holt

Jim Holt Gives Us His Measure

Jim Holt Remembers Teenage Telephone Conversations with B F Skinner

Jim Holt Guides Us Around Greenwich Village

Jim Holt sets out to Review Quentin Crisp

The Best All-Night Party in New York

Jim Holt looks for Something to Read in New York

Jim Holt Returns to the Bathroom for a Smoke

Holt’s Confessions of a New York Winedrinker

Reasons to be Cheerful

Interview: Christopher Hitchens on his new book about the Special Relationship