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David Crosby Understood the Sharpness of Despair

David Crosby, one of the most iconic and enduring voices of the nineteen-sixties, died last week, at the age of eighty-one. He was a founding member of the Byrds and of Crosby, Stills, and Nash (sometimes Crosby, Stills, Nash, and…

Darwin’s Lost Treasure, Found

In a dimly lit basement in the Cambridge University Library, a conservator recently removed two reddish-brown, leather-bound notebooks from a moisture-controlled glass display case. The notebooks—one labelled “B” and the other “C”—belonged to the nineteenth-century naturalist Charles Darwin. In the…

Cynthia Nixon’s “Emily Thing”

Nixon often divides the world into “thinkers” and “actors,” but she is an actor with a talent for channelling thinkers.PHOTOGRAPH BY CLAUDE MEDALE / CORBIS VIA GETTY When Cynthia Nixon was eleven years old, she auditioned for a workshop with…

Cy Twombly, the Content Painter

Cy Twombly put so much effort into hiding his talents that it’s no wonder the art world took ages to appreciate them. Between the early fifties and his death, in 2011, he tried very hard to seem not to be…

Christoph Niemann’s “Highway and Byways”

One of the great joys of downhill skiing is carving fresh tracks. The slopes are a skier’s canvas, one he returns to again and again, open each time to the distinct set of challenges and possibilities every new run offers.…