I recall, months and months ago, reading about The Huffington Post’s decision to ignore Donald Trump. I don’t think it mattered one whit—he’s a phenomenon we will suffer with for at least another six months. So, from the Trump desk:
Think Donald Trump can never be elected? Read The Quiet American by Franklin Foer for Slate, about Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s new Big Dog.
Norm Ornstein from the American Enterprise Institute, who with his Brookings Institution colleague, Thomas Mann, wrote It’s Even Worse than It Looks (updated in 2012 and retitled It’s Even Worse than It Looks Was) was way out front on “better take Trump seriously.” In The Political Scientist Who Saw Trump’s Rise Coming, Andrew Prokop interviews Mr. Ornstein for Vox. If you want to understand why Mr. Trump will be the Republican Party nominee, read this piece.
Donald Trump and the Invention of Charismatic Finance by Daniel Levinson Wilk for The Atlantic explores Trump-style capital financing. Alert: It’s all about the Donald.
Jeremy Bernstein—a theoretical physicist and essayist—wrote The Trump Bomb for The New York Review of Books. On every issue the Donald provides plenty to be scared about, but on no issue is the “scary” greater than when it comes to the notion that this man might have possession of the power to use nuclear missiles.
Finally, New Yorker writer John Cassidy has Is Donald Trump a Flip-Flopper or a Wily Politician? His answer? Read the piece!
Philip Galanes does a regular Sunday New York Times features called Table for Three, where he shares a meal and conversation with two celebrities. This past Sunday’s T4T, Barack Obama and Bryan Cranston on the Roles of a Lifetime, features the president and Bryan Cranston, who plays President Lyndon Johnson in All the Way, a play – HBO film about LBJ’s first year in office. It’s a great discussion!
Carrie Brownstein takes on the conference call in Call Me Crazy. The New Yorker piece is entertaining, and conference calls can be exhausting, but on balance I find them useful, mostly.
From the book review section at the New Yorker, Show Them the Money by Louis Menand looks at sports business in a fresh way.
Joe Allen is a big deal on Broadway, as a restaurateur. Alan Richman has written Joe Allen, Broadway’s Quiet Man, and it’s a lovely and interesting tribute.
J. Kenji Lopéz-Alt is an author and food writer on whom I rely heavily, often. I’m in low gear when it comes to possessions—been there, done that—but I certainly didn’t miss The Essential Tools for Homemade Pizza, written for SeriousEats. And in honor of his post, here’s a slice from Prince St. Pizza in lower Manhattan. Gastric juices are flowing!
Prince St. Pizza Spicy Spring (Sicilian square with pepperoni)