Jim Holt
The Best All-Night Party in New York
For all the chaos that prevails these days in New York, there is one aspect of the city which remains the very soul of rationality, and that is its street-plan. The rectilinear network of numbered streets and avenues affords instant orientation to the visiting out-of-towner. It is not, to be sure, flawlessly Euclidean in its geometry: Fourth Street and Eleventh Street, for instance, intersect in Greenwich Village, and not at infinity as one might expect. Still, even a rube from the Midwest or Scandinavia can find his way around most of the city without too much trouble.
It is only on descending into the subway system that the native New Yorker gains a hometown advantage over the tourist. The layout of the underground train lines is a topologist’s nightmare, with routes that ought to be parallel criss-crossing as many as seven times. The scheme by which the
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm