The Buzz Board
Picks from the Inner Circle
R.J. Cutler
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A producer and director of non-fiction films and television, R.J. Cutler most recently directed and produced The September Issue about legendary Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. He began his career producing The War Room, the Oscar-nominated documentary about Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign for the presidency directed by D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus. Director of The September Issue |
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 Arthur Miller's A View From The Bridge is as potent and necessary today as the day it was written. A passionate, generous, heartbreaking tragedy that yearns to understand contradictions in the American psyche that may never be fully comprehended, 'View' is beautifully rendered by Gregory Mosher and performed impeccably by Jessica Hecht, Scarlett Johansson and our theatrical national treasure Liev Schreiber. Integrating masterful work by designers John Lee Beatty, Peter Kaczorowski and Jane Greenwood, this production is a must-see on Broadway before it closes April 4 - beg, borrow or steal yourself a ticket but make sure you don't miss A View From the Bridge. |
Author of ABC News' The Note |
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 We are in the frustration phase of the Obama presidency. Want evidence? See Lawrence Lessig’s raw argument on the cover of The Nation this week. Lessig, a Harvard Law professor who was an early and passionate Obama supporter, is convinced that the president can’t or won’t do what must be done: “change Congress,” he says. Really change it—with public financing of elections, and even a first-of-its-kind constitutional convention. It’s a long-shot—but it’s a concept that could gain traction in an era of mistrust and disillusionment across the political spectrum. Despite Lessig’s litany of complaints, he draws on Obama for inspiration. On that point, for all the frustration, he’s still far from alone. |
Malcolm Gladwell
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Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer with The New Yorker and author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking and Outliers: The Story of Success. Writer |
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 I love thrillers of all kinds and Lee Child is the master of the form. I am about to read an advance copy of his next book. |
Harold Evans
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Harold Evans, author of two histories of America, just published his memoir, My Paper Chase. Editor at large of The Week, he was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967-81 and The Times from 1981-82, founding editor of Condé Nast Traveler, and president of Random House Trade Group from 1990-97. Author of My Paper Chase |
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Pulitzer! Everyone knows the prize, fewer the man. Here's an antidote to the hand-wringing about the future of the newspaper, a full-scale, full-blooded biography of a penniless immigrant from Hungary who showed what newspapers could do. The eponymous biography by James McGrath Morris is seriously good history but much of it—skullduggery and sin writ large—makes today's tabs seem tame. |
Mario Batali
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Mario Batali is the chef and owner of numerous restaurants including Lupa Osteria, Esca and Del Posto, a TV Personality and founder of the Mario Batali Foundation which strives to ensure children are well-read and well-fed. Chef and TV Personality |
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 The pasta at Marea in New York is just definitive. Michael White is one of the great Italian chefs working in America today. He does this dish with octopus, ragu and bone marrow that will just blow you out of the water. His understanding of fish is just amazing. |
Lee Eisenberg
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Lee Eisenberg’s new book is Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on Buying No Matter What. Excerpts and the author’s blog can be found at LeeEisenberg.com. Author of Shoptimism |
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We can re-dig the cool, often harsh New York City of the fifties and sixties in Sam Stephenson’s The Jazz Loft: Photographs and Tapes of W. Eugene Smith from 821 Sixth Avenue. At that address, Smith holed up for eight years, amidst adjacent spaces where the greatest jazz players of the time gathered to play. The noted ex-Life photographer shot a trove of photographs of jazz giants plus New Yorkers going about their business. Stephenson, who teaches at Duke, spent more than a decade cataloging it all. The result is a beautifully packaged and fitting tribute to Smith and a haunting look at the Flower District before the fade, back when musicians, hookers, and cops stepped out of a night smelling of cigarettes, booze, dope, and cat piss, and into the dawn, only to get hit smack in the face with the sweet rush of roses, lilies, and mums. |
Dan Abrams
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Dan Abrams is CEO of Abrams Research, an attorney, and chief legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC. CEO of Abrams Research and Chief Legal Analyst for NBC News and MSNBC |
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I am riveted by Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine at the moment. I’m ashamed to admit that as I should have read it when it came out. I’m reading it old school for now, paperback, but I think I am about a month away from a full-on kindle transition. |
Vivienne Walt
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Vivienne Walt has written for TIME Magazine since 2003. Her assignments have included Iraq, Iran, the Niger Delta, Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, Sudan and numerous other countries. Walt was a staff writer for Newsday. Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune Magazine, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and elsewhere. She is currently based in Paris, where she lives with her husband and their son. Correspondent for Time Magazine |
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 What really blew me away when I saw District 9 was Clinton Shorter’s soundtrack which had me hooked from the opening credits. Sure there’s been enough said (at least until the Oscars) about the science fiction thriller, although plenty of us South Africans who lived though apartheid had issues with the movie’s portrayal of Johannesburg in the 1980s. Yet after seeing the film, I downloaded the album and it has haunted me ever since, with the Fulani lyrics creeping into the layered instrumentals. It's operatic, meditative, and sinister. Okay, enough with the adjectives. Just listen. |
Matt Van Horn
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Matt Van Horn is the Business Development Director for Digg www.digg.com—the place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. Business Development Director at Digg |
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 If you’re a regular air traveler, you need to use a free service called TripIt to track your flights. All you do is email your itinerary (be it a travel company, Virgin airlines, cruise confirmation email, AMEX travel, etc.) and TripIt automatically tracks your travel plans online. TripIt can also automatically add every itinerary to your personal calendar. I am very frugal and yet just paid $69 for the premium service. Under this plan, TripIt text messages you flight changes and consolidates your mileage points programs in one place. |
Michael Idov
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Michael Idov is a contributing editor at New York Magazine and has covered Russia for The New Republic. His debut novel, Ground Up, has just been released. Contributing Editor at New York Magazine |
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 I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm just finishing up the second season of Breaking Bad and it's absolutely everything a great TV show should be. Where series like Mad Men or The Sopranos are so brilliant they chafe against the edges of the format, Breaking Bad is utterly comfortable in it: it's nailed down an (admittedly insane-sounding) formula—cancer drama meets outlaw western meets chemistry tricks—which is perfectly, endlessly reproducible from episode to episode. And Bryan Cranston is a genius. He even coughs in character. |
