Fruits of a long habit of noting great ledes (or leads in this non-hot type era). Two recent ones that kept me reading, and the third from an Anthony Lane movie review from years ago.
It probably wouldn’t have surprised his long-suffering friends, but the remains of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge have been rediscovered in a wine cellar.
We’ve met only a few hours before and already New York City’s second-most powerful politician has told me about the moment he found out he was HIV positive, his former cocaine habit, the night he decided to get sober, has complained about online gay dating in New York, gotten choked up at least three times, told me he barely gets laid, talked about his mother’s love life, told me how he wants a husband and kids, smoked a cigarette, invited me over to his tiny studio apartment so I can see precisely how small it is — a touch over 300 square feet — and presented me with a proposed theme for a potential 2021 mayoral run.
That message: “Stop Fucking With Us.”
3. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/06/30/big-kills
That is it like being Timur Bekmambetov? No artist should be confused too closely with his creations, but anybody who sits through “Wanted,” Bekmambetov’s new movie, will be tempted to wonder if the life style of the characters might not reflect or rub off on that of the director. How, for example, does he make a cup of coffee? My best guess, based on the evidence of the film, is that he tosses a handful of beans toward the ceiling, shoots them individually into a fine powder, leaves it hanging in the air, runs downstairs, breaks open a fire hydrant with his head, carefully directs the jet of water through the window of his apartment, sets fire to the building, then stands patiently with his mug amid the blazing ruins to collect the precious percolated drops. Don’t even think about a cappuccino.
A Few Reasonable Words 