My second New York Times Mag mini-column is on the futuristic skyscraper Antoni Gaudí designed in 1908 for what is now Ground Zero. His Hotel Attraction (pictured) would be a lot more fun to watch going up outside my office window than the new glass towers are. But see Rowan Moore on the still-in-process Sagrada Familia: Is it really Gaudí?
Exciting: Poet and Silver Jews singer/songwriter/mastermind David Berman has a blog, Menthol Mountains, where he’s pondering “the phony gulp,” hooked-up verse, and other things. (Thanks, 5redpandas.)
“There is something charmingly serendipitous about the English books you find in strange countries.”
Housing Works Bookstore has organized a group reading of Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” in support of Occupy Wall Street, 11/10, 3 p.m. Join us if you’re free. 60 Wall St.
Despite being a relatively committed agnostic, I’ve recently become obsessed with Bertrand Russell. I’m working my way through several of his books at once, and especially enjoying his autobiography. So far, not quite a fifth of the way through, it’s perceptive, precise, and often funny, but also serious — tormented, even — without being pretentious. “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly . . .