Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:42:58 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Robert Asahina :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Robert+Asahina istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us Robert Asahina http://www.nysun.com/sports/celtics-crush-lakers-131-92-for-nba-championship/80218/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST In one of the most decisive victories in NBA history, the Boston Celtics defeated the Los Angeles Lakers, 131-92, on Tuesday night. Before a wildly cheering hometown crowd, the Celtics crushed the Lakers both offensively and defensively, leading by 30 to 40 points throughout much of the second half. In the first half, the Celtics were virtually unstoppable. Kevin Garnett had 17 points on 8 for 12 shooting, as well as 6 rebounds, and Paul Pierce had 10 points and 9 assists. The Celtics went on a... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/father-of-history-made-new/68311/ Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:27:15 EST If the past truly is prologue, then "The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories" (Pantheon, 953 pages, $45), edited by Robert B. Strassler, is the starting point for understanding two-and-a-half millennia of Western history. For it is Herodotus whom we must credit not just with inaugurating history as a subject of inquiry, but for using the very word, historiē, to name that activity of research and writing. This massive volume, with a new translation by Andrea L. Purvis and introduction by... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/were-not-in-oz-anymore/60780/ Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST No unsightly wrinkle dares to mar the Teflon perfection of Nicole Kidman's face. With her preternaturally smooth and dome-like forehead yanked somewhere north of her hairline, she wears a permanent wide-eyed and quizzical expression, eyebrows unnaturally arched at a slightly demonic angle. Smooth and featureless, her frighteningly pale skin stretches like high-tensile space-age fabric over her egg-sized cheekbones. When she tries to smile, the corners of her mouth barely twitch, and her eyes... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/roky-ericksons-long-strange-trip/55951/ Wed, 6 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST You had to have been there the first time "You're Gonna Miss Me" blared out on AM radios across the country. A few measures of mercilessly whanged guitar chords, clanking cymbals, and throbbing bass, followed by an unearthly burbling sound and then the shock of some spine-tingling screeches (like a cat with its paws stuck in a light socket) — all of this boggled millions of minds in the summer of 1966. Long before rock nerds would credit them as a precursor of punk and an influence on bands as... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/get-yourself-a-gun/51742/ Tue, 3 Apr 2007 00:00:00 EST "And now — " This Sunday, the familiar words and the unmistakable song will launch the first episode of the last season of "The Sopranos." Appropriately titled "Made in America," this episode marks the beginning of the end of the series, but it is also the end as beginning, grounding fate squarely in the characters' childhood selves, rather than in the stars. (Isn't that Dr. Melfi's message?) We're dunked, along with the Soprano family and crew, back into the pot in which all Americans are more... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/revisiting-ground-zero-in-aftermath/45459/ Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST Despite the cliché that "everything changed" after September 11, 2001, little difference can be found in most books, particularly novels, published since then. In what passes for literary fiction in the post-Ground Zero era, only the mildest flutters of fashionable anxiety over career plans and sexual peccadilloes threaten the complacency of uppermiddle-class characters — and their creators. America in the 21st century has yet to produce its version of Dostoevsky's "Devils" or Conrad's "The... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/judith-regan-falls-victim-to-conventional-wisdom/45302/ Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST On Friday evening, just after the close of the daily news cycle, Harper-Collins issued a terse statement that it was firing Judith Regan, "effective immediately," from the imprint she founded, ReganBooks. It was unclear whether Ms. Regan — the flamboyant and controversial would-be publisher of "If I Did It," the hypothetical O.J. Simpson tell-all — would remain an employee of HarperCollins's parent company, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., for which she has also produced television series and... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/just-a-victim-of-circumstances/45052/ Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:00:00 EST Eighteen years ago, Thomas Harris was living proof that F. Scott Fitzgerald had it all wrong. In a bravura rebuke to the idea that there are no second acts in America, Mr. Harris had, with "The Silence of the Lambs" (1988), achieved the improbable: writing an even greater thriller than the great one that inspired it, his own "Red Dragon" (1981). The earlier book had struck millions of readers as the most accomplished, and simply terrifying, suspense novel of its time. Among other things, "Red... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/paean-to-pederasty/31455/ Mon, 24 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST In "The History Boys," Alan Bennett tries to dramatize the sexually fraught relationship of teachers and their students. But his considerable skills as a playwright are inadequate to this task. And understanding why requires looking at education in a broader philosophical context. Twenty years ago next month, Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind" (which I edited) became a surprise no. 1 best seller. Though it was a densely argued polemic by a littleknown scholar, it somehow captured... ROBERT ASAHINA http://www.nysun.com/arts/on-the-road-with-natalie/30610/ Fri, 7 Apr 2006 00:00:00 EST Let's call them Rodney King movies. You know, the ones that ask, "Why can't we all just get along?" The latest example of the genre is "Free Zone," written and directed by Amos Gitai, the veteran Israeli filmmaker whose "Promised Land" (about sex slavery in the Middle East) gained him some notoriety two years ago. Although Mr. Gitai has produced, directed, written, and acted in more than three dozen films, his ideas about the Arab-Israeli conflict are about at the level of Mr. King's...