lieslkschil
@lieslkschil.bsky.social
Journalist, professor, translator; baker of cakes, singer of songs, reader of books; based in Manhattan, mostly, but in the Shenandoah as often as possible.
RIP, Marilyn Hagerty—the longtime North Dakota food columnist (and grandmother) whose startlingly evenhanded review of her local Olive Garden made her an internet sensation in her 80s. Lovely NYT obit of her by Pete Wells. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/d...
Marilyn Hagerty, Whose Olive Garden Review Went Viral, Dies at 99
www.nytimes.com
September 19, 2025 at 3:42 AM
RIP, Marilyn Hagerty—the longtime North Dakota food columnist (and grandmother) whose startlingly evenhanded review of her local Olive Garden made her an internet sensation in her 80s. Lovely NYT obit of her by Pete Wells. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/d...
Such a joy to read Zach Helfand’s lively, clear, thorough and very funny piece on the genesis, history and OCD mania of the New Yorker’s fact checking department (where I worked many years-as did he). Atta checker!” “VAUNTED” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
The History of The New Yorker’s Vaunted Fact-Checking Department
Reporters engage in charm and betrayal; checkers are in the harm-reduction business.
www.newyorker.com
August 30, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Such a joy to read Zach Helfand’s lively, clear, thorough and very funny piece on the genesis, history and OCD mania of the New Yorker’s fact checking department (where I worked many years-as did he). Atta checker!” “VAUNTED” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
At last—a beauty trend I have a chance of keeping up with.
August 13, 2025 at 4:39 PM
At last—a beauty trend I have a chance of keeping up with.
Really sickened by the news of the closing down of “The Hive” at Vanity Fair. It’s some of the best inside Washington /political news reporting anywhere. Maybe they can continue as an independent entity. With an angel backer or two behind them?
August 13, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Really sickened by the news of the closing down of “The Hive” at Vanity Fair. It’s some of the best inside Washington /political news reporting anywhere. Maybe they can continue as an independent entity. With an angel backer or two behind them?
Lessons for today’s elites from Stendhal’s cloak-and-dagger court intrigue novel “The Charterhouse of Parma”-my essay in today’s Times. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/b...
This 19th-Century Novel Is a Playbook for Surviving Autocracy
www.nytimes.com
July 23, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Lessons for today’s elites from Stendhal’s cloak-and-dagger court intrigue novel “The Charterhouse of Parma”-my essay in today’s Times. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/b...
This 2022 collection by Spanish journalist Begoña Gómez Urzaiz is hugely thought-provoking—and so well-written. Essays on famous women who put personal ambition/fulfillment ahead of motherhood; and on her guilty discomfort with their choice-mingled with guilty admiration. Timely and timeless.
June 10, 2025 at 5:24 PM
This 2022 collection by Spanish journalist Begoña Gómez Urzaiz is hugely thought-provoking—and so well-written. Essays on famous women who put personal ambition/fulfillment ahead of motherhood; and on her guilty discomfort with their choice-mingled with guilty admiration. Timely and timeless.
The brilliant Timothy Ryback, in The Atlantic, on the tariffs Hitler imposed in 1933, and their consequences. Always mining the past for lessons worth heeding— www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Hitler’s Terrible Tariffs
By seeking to “liberate” Germans from a globalized world order, the Nazi government sent the national economy careening backwards.
www.theatlantic.com
April 23, 2025 at 4:50 AM
The brilliant Timothy Ryback, in The Atlantic, on the tariffs Hitler imposed in 1933, and their consequences. Always mining the past for lessons worth heeding— www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Moving personal testimony yesterday -the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-by two French survivors of the Holocaust, Esther Senot and Léon Placek, who told Macron of their experiences in the camps, and in France after the war. www.facebook.com/share/v/1AxW...
Redirecting...
www.facebook.com
January 28, 2025 at 6:12 PM
Moving personal testimony yesterday -the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-by two French survivors of the Holocaust, Esther Senot and Léon Placek, who told Macron of their experiences in the camps, and in France after the war. www.facebook.com/share/v/1AxW...
Masterful piece in TNY (such brio to the writing) on Argentina's libertarian strongman-madman leader Javier Milei. And terrifying. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Javier Milei Wages War on Argentina’s Government
The President, a libertarian economist given to outrageous provocations, wants to remake the nation. Can it survive his shock-therapy approach?
www.newyorker.com
December 11, 2024 at 1:22 PM
Masterful piece in TNY (such brio to the writing) on Argentina's libertarian strongman-madman leader Javier Milei. And terrifying. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
I so admired Jeannie Suk Gersen’s TNY essay on her conversion to Judaism after October 7th— intricacies of the process and of her reasons. It chimed with me strongly, as last week I read “Daniel Deronda”—whose hero (spoiler) proudly reclaims his Jewish identity. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Converting to Judaism in the Wake of October 7th
For decades, I maintained a status quo of living like a Jew without being one. When I finally pursued conversion, I discovered that I was part of a larger movement born of crisis.
www.newyorker.com
December 5, 2024 at 4:58 PM
I so admired Jeannie Suk Gersen’s TNY essay on her conversion to Judaism after October 7th— intricacies of the process and of her reasons. It chimed with me strongly, as last week I read “Daniel Deronda”—whose hero (spoiler) proudly reclaims his Jewish identity. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Devastating poem by the great Jorie Graham in NYRB—“The Killing Spree.” It puts me in mind of the first poem of hers I read (in TNY, in 1989-“Fission”)—both sharing in the spirit of Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
The Killing Spree | Jorie Graham
a poem
www.nybooks.com
November 22, 2024 at 12:34 PM
Devastating poem by the great Jorie Graham in NYRB—“The Killing Spree.” It puts me in mind of the first poem of hers I read (in TNY, in 1989-“Fission”)—both sharing in the spirit of Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
I’m so enjoying Sebastian Smee’s fascinating book “Paris in Ruins”— which shows how war and the violent Paris insurrection of 1871 fueled the rise of Impressionism. It’s fun and personal (intertwining lives of Manet, Morisot, Degas &c). But it’s also movingly relevant to our present national moment.
November 21, 2024 at 6:45 PM
I’m so enjoying Sebastian Smee’s fascinating book “Paris in Ruins”— which shows how war and the violent Paris insurrection of 1871 fueled the rise of Impressionism. It’s fun and personal (intertwining lives of Manet, Morisot, Degas &c). But it’s also movingly relevant to our present national moment.
Must-read: Carole Cadwalladr on how to survive the Broligarchy. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... She’s been my hero since she broke the story (Observer, 2018) of how Cambridge Analytica mined Facebook data to game Brexit & the 2016 US election, w/$ from Robert Mercer and wiles from Steve Bannon.
How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world | Carole Cadwalladr
In the wake of Trump’s unnerving appointees, the investigative journalist and veteran of the libel court offers pointers on coping in an age of surveillance
www.theguardian.com
November 20, 2024 at 2:10 AM
Must-read: Carole Cadwalladr on how to survive the Broligarchy. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... She’s been my hero since she broke the story (Observer, 2018) of how Cambridge Analytica mined Facebook data to game Brexit & the 2016 US election, w/$ from Robert Mercer and wiles from Steve Bannon.
East Village, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024–
November 17, 2024 at 6:24 PM
East Village, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024–
I wrote this essay for LitHub last month, on the Council of Nine who ruled Siena in its golden age-and, unlike SCOTUS, had strict term limits and obeyed ethics codes (imposed by fresco). (If you can, see the glorious Met show on the rise of painting in Siena in this era!) lithub.com/what-the-sup...
What the Supreme Court Can Learn From a 14th-Century Italian City-State
On the last day of September, a judge in Georgia struck down the six-week abortion ban that was imposed on the state two years ago, following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wa…
lithub.com
November 16, 2024 at 4:13 PM
I wrote this essay for LitHub last month, on the Council of Nine who ruled Siena in its golden age-and, unlike SCOTUS, had strict term limits and obeyed ethics codes (imposed by fresco). (If you can, see the glorious Met show on the rise of painting in Siena in this era!) lithub.com/what-the-sup...
Such a fine, thought-provoking essay by Zadie Smith (NYRB) on Charlotte Beradt’s “The Third Reich of Dreams”—totalitarian dreams she collected from German contemporaries in the 1930s. New translation (out in April) by Damion Searls. Gleichschaltung and the algorithm. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
The Dream of the Raised Arm | Zadie Smith
It’s no wonder those who lived under the Third Reich suffered ceaseless nightmares. What of our dreams today, under the totalitarianism of the online algorithm?
www.nybooks.com
November 16, 2024 at 5:57 AM
Such a fine, thought-provoking essay by Zadie Smith (NYRB) on Charlotte Beradt’s “The Third Reich of Dreams”—totalitarian dreams she collected from German contemporaries in the 1930s. New translation (out in April) by Damion Searls. Gleichschaltung and the algorithm. www.nybooks.com/articles/202...
If you seek escape on streaming, may I recommend Season 2 of Bad Sisters? (Apple+) If you missed Season 1...it's a showcase for sisterhood under extreme duress (i.e., timely). Dark, funny, lurid. Sharon Horgan & Anne-Marie Duff are excellent; Eve Hewson (Bono's daughter) is magnetic. You might like?
November 15, 2024 at 2:02 PM
If you seek escape on streaming, may I recommend Season 2 of Bad Sisters? (Apple+) If you missed Season 1...it's a showcase for sisterhood under extreme duress (i.e., timely). Dark, funny, lurid. Sharon Horgan & Anne-Marie Duff are excellent; Eve Hewson (Bono's daughter) is magnetic. You might like?
Today I reread Tim Snyder’s “On Tyranny” and leafed through Hannah Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism,” searching for a passage I recall (couldn’t find it, anyone know it?) on the danger in dictatorships when citizens stop following the news, as it’s too upsetting. We must resist that impulse.
This is the play, intimidate critics, try to silence them.
November 15, 2024 at 3:13 AM
Today I reread Tim Snyder’s “On Tyranny” and leafed through Hannah Arendt’s “Origins of Totalitarianism,” searching for a passage I recall (couldn’t find it, anyone know it?) on the danger in dictatorships when citizens stop following the news, as it’s too upsetting. We must resist that impulse.