Winged Victory of Samothrace

from SSENSE

JAMES FREY LETS IT RIP

Inside the world of the notorious “A Million Little Pieces” author, who’s back in the spotlight with a pulpy new murder mystery.

Written by: Paul Thompson

The thing about working for magazines is you end up in lots of cars with men you’ve just met. And so by the time we pull up to the monolithic black house at the end of a long driveway in New Canaan, Connecticut, about an hour from our departure point in New York, the three of us—photographer Adam Powell; his assistant for the day, a contemplative musician whose high school girlfriend had once grown evangelical about this story’s subject; and myself—have already developed not only a plan for the shoot and interview but a shared set of crypticisms to track its progress. This is work. Still, when we step out of the car, we’re transfixed. Alone in the otherwise empty front lawn sits a replica of one of the most recognizable statues in the Western canon: Winged Victory of Samothrace, the goddess Niké missing her head and arms. We stare; we riff; we grow quiet again. Without us noticing, the house’s owner approaches from behind. “The real one is in the Louvre,” he says.

James Frey has lived in New Canaan for more than a decade, and in this house for about half that time, since the split from his wife of 20 years. The black exterior is in contrast with the floor-to-ceiling white inside. When I comment on the paint’s unusual texture (following Frey’s lead, I had removed my shoes and socks during our trek through the tall grass toward the pond in his backyard), he explains that this is what they use on the tops of skyscrapers. He believes it’s the only material that adequately reflects the sunlight that pours in through giant windows. His collection of art is expensive, abundant, indisputably cohesive. Almost as soon as we’ve finished discussing the real Samothrace’s prime placement in Paris—we are, ultimately, four people who can picture the Louvre—Frey is posing for photos in the nook of his living room where he writes, in the weeds outside his bedroom window, on rocks that jut from a creek near a friendly bobcat’s lair, face stoic, one or both of his middle fingers raised.This is early May. Almost exactly 22 years prior, Frey’s first book, A Million Little Pieces, was published to mixed, sometimes tortured reviews but achieved, over the next two-and-a-half years, supernova commercial success. If Frey’s name sparks even the vaguest jolt of recognition, you also likely remember the controversy over the revelation that parts of Pieces had been exaggerated, or fabricated entirely. The book was marketed as a memoir, and Frey had defended it in public as such. Oprah at first lavished him with praise, then later brought him on her show to excoriate him.Since the scandal began in earnest in 2005, Frey, now 55, has given vanishingly few interviews—even when he published Katerina, his first full, literary novel in a decade, in 2018. But he’s evidently reconsidered this approach. In the leadup to the publication of Next To Heaven, his pulpy new murder mystery about an upper-crust town not unlike New Canaan, he’s hired a renowned publicist; when I visit him, he’s in the middle of the long process of sitting for a New York Times profile. At one point, he requests that we go off the record so he can explicate why, exactly, he’s opening himself to this media attention and scrutiny. But what he tells me when my recorder is off is virtually identical to something he says when it’s switched back on: “I want my title back.”

[ click to continue reading at SSENSE ]

Hot and Sweaty

from Dream Baby Press

The Hot and Sweaty Book Launch for James Frey

by DREAM BABY PRESS AND MATT STARR

Last Tuesday we hosted the book launch for James Frey’s new book Next To Heaven published by Authors Equity at Harper’s Gallery in NYC. I’ve been feeling sad recently so it was nice to read some new poems aloud, be around friends, hear some good stories and throw James a big book launch.

Gina Gershon, Carole Radziwill, Matt Starr (your trusted narrator), Lili Anolik, Annie Hamilton, Sarah Hoover, and Laura Desiree read before James came on at the end and closed the show. I’ll detail what each person read below.

The theme was love and sex.

[ click to continue reading at Dream Baby Press ]

Authors Equity NEXT TO HEAVEN

from substack

Let it rip.

On the release of Next to Heaven by James Frey

New Bethlehem is as beautiful and safe and perfect a town as exists in the United States, as beautiful and safe and perfect a town as exists anywhere in the world. But no beauty exists without flaws, however hidden. Absolute safety is but an illusion. No matter what we think or see or believe or feel, perfection isn’t real. And beneath the beauty and safety and perfection of New Bethlehem, there are secrets and there are lies, and there is sadness and there is rage, there is failure and there is desperation, betrayal and heartbreak, hate and violence.

And once or twice in a century, there is murder.


About a year ago, I was boarding a flight from LA to New York, bracing for six hours in a middle seat at the back of the plane. My phone pinged with a text flagging a priority submission. I downloaded, put in earphones to tune out seatmates, and settled in for the ride. And what a ride it’s been.

I had last encountered 

James Frey a few decades earlier when I was the sales director for the imprint publishing his debut—a spectacular piece of writing that did spectacularly well until it became spectacularly controversial. Many people got very, very angry at the author.

I wasn’t one of them. To me, the whole thing seemed tragic and operatically fraught. Looking back on it now, compared to so many other literary controversies, this one makes 2003 feel, to me, like the Victorian age—long ago and far away in its earnest morality.

By the time I got off that plane in New York last spring, I knew I wanted to publish James’ new book.

[ click to continue reading on substack ]

Love & Hate

from Dream Baby Press

JAMES FREY’S LOVE/HATE LIST

40 Things James Frey Loves and Hates

by DREAM BABY PRESS

dd

Dream Baby Press asked James Frey for a list of 20 things he loves and 20 things he hates.

James Frey was called America’s Most Notorious Author by Time Magazine and a Literary Outlaw by The New York Times. He has written multiple global bestsellers, including A Million Little PiecesBright Shiny Morning, and The Final Testament of the Holy Bible. His books have sold more than thirty million copies, and his work has been published in forty-two languages. He lives in a small town in Connecticut.

His new book NEXT TO HEAVEN is out today. Get your copy now and wherever books are sold.

Follow James Frey on Instagram.

Follow Dream Baby Press on Instagram.


THINGS JAMES FREY LOVES:

  1. A passionate make out, heavy lips, heavy tongue, high school style.
  2. Cold sweet coffee
  3. A strong menthol cigarette, once or twice a month
  4. The joyful nothingness of a long meditation
  5. Warm swimming pools…

THINGS JAMES FREY HATES:

  1. Close talkers
  2. Spittle
  3. Drunk people
  4. Bills
  5. Slow drivers in the fast lane…

[ click to continue reading at Dream Baby Press ]

Peace in New Canaan

from Town and Country

How James Frey Channeled Danielle Steel in Next to Heaven

The writer has a new novel out, and this time, the drama—set among Connecticut’s elite—is all on the page.

BY DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH

Person seated on a modern lounge chair in a bright room with large windows.
DUTCH DOSCHER

James Frey has found peace in New Canaan, Connecticut. In the decades since his memoir of rehabilitation A Million Little Pieces became the center of controversy in the publishing world—it initially found a place in Oprah’s book club before a number of exaggerations and falsehoods were exposed—he’s found a sanctuary away from the limelight.

When we speak, Frey has just returned from a college roadtrip with his son. It’s clear that while family time and a life away from the spotlight are determining factors in his transformation, it’s his home of more than a decade that seems most crucial to his calm attitude, a transformation from the early, irascible, years of his success. Looking out of the picture window in his living room in early April, he says, “It’s just the most beautiful place. It’s majestic.” It’s surprising then, that such an idyllic setting inspired Next to Heavenhis new tale of lies and deceit set among Connecticut’s one percent.

The novel centers on four couples in the town of New Bethlehem, a town which he describes as a “version” of New Canaan. Frey is quick to note, however, that it is his town, “not his neighbors,” that is mirrored in the book. The denizens of New Bethlehem, some new, others very old, shop at the same expensive supermarkets, send their children to the same prestigious school, and play tennis at the same exclusive country club. They also share secrets—financial turmoil, affairs, and drug problems—that threaten to ruin their artfully cultivated image of perfection.

[ click to continue reading at T&C ]

T&C: Best Reads of Summer 2025 w/ NEXT TO HEAVEN

Town and Country

The 46 Must-Read Books of Summer 2025

Buzzy novels, compulsively readable memoirs, and a few guilty pleasures.

BY DOROTHY SCARBOROUGHEMILY BURACK AND ADAM RATHE

Next To Heaven

Next To Heaven

SHOP AT AMAZON

It’s as tale as old as time: dark secrets lurk behind artfully cultivated hedge roses. In James Frey’s latest novel, Next to Heaven, four couples in the wealthy enclave of New Bethlehem, Conn. (a fictionalized New Haven) find their lives upended after a swinging shindig held by local queen bees Devon McCallister and Belle Hedges Moore goes awry. As mysteries unfold, romances begin and end, and fortunes are made and lost, there’s only one possible conclusion: someone has been pulling the strings the whole time.

[ click to continue reading at Town and Country Magazine ]

WSJ: Sizzling misdeeds

from The Wall Street Journal

An Infamous Author Wrote a Novel About His Town. What Do the Neighbors Think?

Best known for the memoir ‘A Million Little Pieces’ and the ensuing controversy, James Frey now has a sizzling beach read about the misdeeds of the rich

By Ellen Gamerman

The spring meeting of Frey’s book club was held at a friend’s mansion near the New York-Connecticut border.© Ryan Lowry for WSJ. Magazine

James Frey’s book group was meeting to discuss the new novel by the notorious author James Frey.

Though he has written six books, Frey is best known for “A Million Little Pieces,” the 2003 bestseller about his drug-and-alcohol addiction. That title, marketed as a memoir, turned Frey into a pariah when it was revealed he falsified or exaggerated parts of his story. Oprah scolded him on TV. His agent dumped him.

Now he’s releasing a sizzling gossipfest about the misdeeds of the rich called “Next to Heaven,” which revolves around an elite swingers party in a town based on New Canaan, Conn., the moneyed enclave where the author lives. Against that backdrop, the book can seem like reality disguised as fiction, as opposed to the fiction disguised as reality that led to his literary scandal two decades ago.

“If I write a book that is published as nonfiction, everybody tears it apart trying to figure out what in it is not true,” the author, 55, said. “If I write a book that’s fiction, everybody tears it apart trying to figure out what is true.”

[ click to continue reading at WSJ ]

The New York Times (then and now)

from The New York Times

Oprah Shamed Him. He’s Back Anyway.

Twenty years after “A Million Little Pieces” became a national scandal, James Frey is ready for a new audience.

By Sam Dolnick

James Frey in an Eames chair in the corner of a white room with white floors and low white bookshelves.
James Frey on his custom-made XL Eames chair, at his home in New Canaan, Conn. Credit…Erik Tanner for The New York Times

James Frey was, for a time, one of the most famous nonfiction writers in America. And then someone checked the facts.

In 2005, Oprah Winfrey selected his memoir “A Million Little Pieces” for her book club, only to learn soon after that he had fabricated parts of his story about drug addiction and his time in rehab. She shamed Frey on national TV for betraying the American public, and his publisher offered refunds. He was branded a villain, a fraud — and became perhaps the first canceled man this century.

“Did I lie? Yup,” he told me. “Did I also write a book that tore people to shreds? Yeah.”

Today, lies are told with gusto, while facts are distorted and erased at the speed of tapping thumbs. Just scroll on X for a bit, and the Frey affair might look like a horse and buggy that was ticketed for trotting too fast.

As Frey sees it, the public has gotten increasingly comfortable with falsehoods, without getting fully comfortable with him. He finds it all a bit absurd. “I just sit in my castle and giggle,” he said.

[ click to continue reading at NYT ]

VANITY FAIR: James Frey now and then.

from Vanity Fair

James Frey Swears His New Book About Very Rich, Poorly Behaved People Isn’t Based on Anyone Real

Nearly 20 years post-Oprah debacle, the Million Little Piecesauthor talks to VF about his response to criticism, using ChatGPT, and his money-drenched sex-romp murder mystery, Next to Heaven.

BY KEZIAH WEIR

The author James Frey, now and then. ILLUSTRATION BY ORIANA FENWICK.

If James Frey’s road has been a rocky one, at least the bumps were diamonds. In the two decades since he got an Oprah dressing down when it turned out he’d fabricated parts of his mega-best-selling memoir, A Million Little Pieces, he founded and sold a booky content farm, dabbled as CEO of an esports company, and collaborated with Lena Waithe on the Queen & Slim story. Also in those years: the rise of autofiction, the death of truth, and a newly unslakable thirst for IP skewering (while sort of celebrating) the ultrarich.

Enter: Next to Heaven (Authors Equity), Frey’s first new book in six years, a Connecticut sex romp–cum–murder mystery with what he calls “big nods” to Jackie CollinsDanielle Steel, and Tom Wolfe. Accordingly, its characters would feel at home in the White Lotus extended universe: a cash-poor WASP art dealer, an aggro hedge funder, a Bitcoin-trading drug dealer who idolizes Eric Trump and Kanye West. That their physical descriptions read like a central-casting call sheet (the women: “tall, thin” or “thin, petite,” with “deep blue eyes” or “bright hazel eyes” or “big brown eyes like mudpies”) doesn’t really matter—and by the introduction of a “tall, buff, black-haired blue-eyed steaming hunk of Connecticut beefcake,” they ascend to something like camp.

The book, to which Frey sold TV rights before the actual manuscript, takes place in fictional New Bethlehem, which bears a striking resemblance to his current home of New Canaan. It has caused something of a stir among members of his social set. At a party, he says, one unwitting attendee whispered to his girlfriend (a countess and equine therapist) that they’d heard the novel was “all real.” He swears the characters aren’t based on actual people—although, of their art collections, “I’ve been in enough houses of hedge fund billionaires to know what they tend to buy.” (For other details he turned to ChatGPT, searching for “the most expensive scotch in the world, or most expensive silverware in the world.”)

[ click to continue reading at Vanity Fair ]

Everybody wants a hug and a Pulitzer.

from People Magazine

A Million Little Pieces Author James Frey Opens Up About Oprah Winfrey Controversy: ‘Brutal Hypocrisy’

In 2006 Winfrey called out the author when she learned that his memoir, which she chose for Oprah’s Book Club, was partly fabricated

By Carly Tagen-Die

James Frey and Oprah Winfrey
James Frey and Oprah Winfrey. Credit : Steve Granitz/WireImage; Stewart Cook/Getty for Warner Bros.

James Frey is speaking out about his infamous publishing controversy.

In an interview with The New York Times published on June 8, the author looked back on the publication of his 2003 book A Million Little Pieces. Originally marketed as a memoir, the book detailed the author’s experience with drug and alcohol addiction, as well as his subsequent rehabilitation. Oprah Winfrey chose the memoir for her book club in 2005, and it soon became a bestseller.

[ click to continue reading at People ]

Cancelling Winston

from The Daily Mail

George Orwell estate accused of censorship after putting trigger warning at start of Nineteen Eighty-Four

By JADA BAS

George Orwell’s estate has been accused of censorship after a ‘trigger warning’ was added to his classic novel Nineteen Eighty Four.

The preface of the the 75th anniversary edition suggests Orwell’s protagonist Winston Smith is ‘problematic’ and that readers may find his views on women ‘despicable’. 

The introductory essay was written by US novelist Dolen Perkins-Valdez and critics claim it risks undermining the revolutionary novel’s warning against state control of thought.

Orwell’s dystopian hyperbolic future is set under an authoritarian regime, where citizens are punished by the ‘Thought Police’ for subversive thoughts.

It follows Winston Smith and a minor bureaucrat who secretly rebels against the regime with Julia, a fellow party member. 

[ click to continue reading at TDM ]

Astrocytes

from The Washington Post via MSN

Little-known cells might be key to human brain’s massive memory

by Erin Blakemore

Little-known cells might be key to human brain’s massive memory © Arthur Chien/Science Source

A new model of memory — and a little-heralded type of brain cell — might explain why the human brain has such a huge storage capacity, researchers reported in the journal PNAS in May. 

The study looks at astrocytes, star-shaped cells that interact with neurons in the brain.

The brain contains billions of astrocytes, and scientists have long known they play a part in cleaning up molecules within brain synapses, the junctions where neurons come together. 

More recent research, though, suggests that astrocytes do more. 

The new model suggests the astrocytes could also be used for computation, coordinating with neurons and connecting synapses in networks.

[ click to continue reading at MSN ]

ESQUIRE Best Books of Summer – NEXT TO HEAVEN

from ESQUIRE

The Best Books of Summer 2025

Recommendations from the people who knows books best: independent-bookstore owners.

By Ryan D’Agostino

Next To Heaven, by James Frey

Next To Heaven, by James Frey

… will be the novel on every beach towel this summer, all summer, everywhere. Because sex and murder, yes. And because Frey could always tell a great story.

Now 17% Off

$29 $24 AT AMAZON
$27 AT BOOKSHOP
$29 AT WALMART
Credit: Authors Equity

[ click to read full list at ESQUIRE ]

ispace moonbase

from ABC News

A private company wants to build a city on the moon. But it has to land a probe first

ispace will make its second attempt at an uncrewed moon landing Thursday.

By Matthew Glasser

A private space exploration company based in Japan, ispace, wants to see people living on the moon by 2040. They have plans to eventually build a city on the lunar surface that would house a thousand people and welcome thousands more for tourist visits.

But first, they need to land a probe on the Moon’s surface successfully. In April 2023, their first attempt fell short of that goal after they lost communication with their first lander during the mission’s final moments.

On Thursday at 3:17 p.m. ET, ispace will make its second attempt at an uncrewed moon landing with its lunar lander called Resilience.

[ click to continue reading at ABC News ]

NEXT TO HEAVEN – New Canaan Library w/ Gina Gershon

from Bedford and New Canaan Magazine

Author James Frey in Conversation with Gina Gershon

frey and book cover

With biting wit and unflinching precision, James Frey takes readers on a satirical thrill ride through the dark heart of privilege in his latest novel, Next to Heaven. Fans of The White Lotus and Big Little Lies will be captivated by the twists and turns of a narrative that exposes the treachery behind the American Dream. Elm Street Books will be on site for book sales and signing.

Date: June 16
Time: 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Cost: Free

[ click to read at B&NC Magazine ]

BUSTLE Most Anticipated 2025 Books – NEXT TO HEAVEN

from Bustle

Next to Heaven by James Frey

by Bustle Editors

Next To Heaven bookcover
buy at Bookshop.org

Out June 17. Frey’s first adult novel in seven years follows four glamorous, miserable, and ultra-wealthy couples — a group whose glossy surfaces begin to crack when a swingers party ends in murder. With coke-fueled monologues, a surplus of extramarital sex scenes, and plenty of suburban ennui, Next to Heaven delivers a deliriously over-the-top portrait of decadence on the brink. — S.L.

{ click to read at BUSTLE ]

Killing Death

from StudyFinds

‘Final Frontier In Medicine’ Unlocked? ‘Pausing’ Cell Death Could Slow Aging, Cancer, Brain Degeneration

Research led by Dr. Carina Kern, LinkGevity

Cell death (necrosis)
Illustration of a healthy cell (left) alongside a cell that has been affected by necrosis (right). (Credit: LinkGevity)

LONDON — What if the secret to staying young wasn’t another costly cream or trendy supplement, but tamping down a messy kind of cell death that has flown under the radar? A new study argues that necrosis — the uncontrolled “bursting” of damaged cells — may be a major upstream driver of everything from cancer and heart attacks to kidney disease and even aging itself.

Your body constantly kills off old, damaged, or infected cells in a highly controlled process called apoptosis. Everything is carefully orchestrated to clear away cellular debris without damaging surrounding tissue.

Unlike this orderly process, necrosis is essentially cellular chaos: ruptured membranes spill enzymes, DNA fragments, and inflammatory signals onto nearby tissue. These spilled contents act like alarm bells that attract immune cells and trigger more inflammation.

[ click to continue reading at StudyFinds ]

Dark Skies Tonight

from National Geographic

These are the best stargazing sites in North America

These dark sky sanctuaries, reserves, parks, and trails invite you to immerse yourself in the wonders of our night skies. Here’s where to go.

By Amy Brecount White

Travelers are increasingly lifting their eyes to nighttime skies in search of impressive celestial phenomena and, perhaps, more. “Looking up at the night sky is sort of what makes us human,” says Ruskin Hartley, the executive director of DarkSky International, a nonprofit group based in Tucson, Arizona. “We have done it for millennia. Every single culture has told their first stories in the stars overhead, and they found meaning in the stars. Today, the vast majority of people are robbed of that.”

On a clear night last November, I spent over two hours in a dome atop nearly 7,000-foot-tall Kitt Peak, an hour outside of Tucson, peering through one of their 20-plus telescopes. The moonless night along with the high and dry climate enabled our guide to share bright and clear highlights, including the Andromeda galaxy, the ringed planet Saturn with several of its moons, and a globular cluster. Outside the dome, we simply marveled at the stunning clarity of our galaxy home, the Milky Way.

[ click to continue reading at NatGeo ]

Deadlink

from New Scientist

The sun is killing off SpaceX’s Starlink satellites

There have never been so many satellites orbiting Earth as there are today, thanks in part to the launch of mega constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink internet service – and now we are learning just how the sun’s activity can affect them

By Jonathan O’Callaghan

An artist’s impression of a Starlink satellite in orbit – La Nacion/ZUMA Press/Alamy

Eruptions from the sun are shortening the lives of satellites in Earth orbit, particularly large constellations like SpaceX’s Starlink – which could be both beneficial and a cause for concern.

The sun goes through an 11-year cycle of activity, peaking with a period known as solar maximum, which most recently occurred in late 2024. During these periods, increased eruptions from the sun can create geomagnetic storms that heat our planet’s atmosphere, causing it to swell outwards in size and increasing drag on satellites.

[ click to continue reading at New Scientist ]

Terry Returns To World

from The Guardian

Blacklisted fashion photographer Terry Richardson returns to the newsstands

Arena Homme+ publishes cover shots and portfolio eight years after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced

Chloe Mac Donnell – Deputy fashion and lifestyle editor

Terry Richardson, whose newly published portfolio is a tribute to film director David Lynch. Photograph: Danny Moloshok/Reuters

Eight years after major fashion brands and publications said they would no longer work with Terry Richardson, following a string of allegations of sexual misconduct made against the renowned fashion photographer, he now appears to be making a comeback.

This week, the magazine Arena Homme+ unveiled its latest issue, featuring two covers shot by Richardson and an accompanying portfolio. One cover consists of an image of a toilet cubicle graffitied with the text “Punk rock ruined my life.” Another is a shot of a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump’s face.

Entitled For David, from Terry, the images are billed as a tribute to the US film-maker David Lynch, who died in January.

[ click to continue reading at The Guardian ]

Inviso-lenses

from StudyFinds

Revolutionary Contact Lenses Let Humans See The Invisible

Research led by Tian Xue, University of Science and Technology of China

Hand,Gestures,Captured,On,Thermal,Imager,Device.,Warm,Hands,Of
Hand gestures captured on infrared imager device. (Image by Maximillian cabinet on Shutterstock)

HEFEI, China — Scientists have solved two major limitations of human vision in one breakthrough: our inability to see in darkness and our blindness to infrared light. Newly developed contact lenses convert invisible infrared radiation into visible colors, effectively giving wearers both enhanced night vision and access to an entirely new color spectrum.

Published in the journal Cell, the study describes how researchers created these soft, transparent contact lenses embedded with microscopic particles that convert infrared radiation into visible light. Unlike traditional night-vision goggles that produces grainy green images, these lenses create sharp, colorful visuals that work seamlessly alongside normal eyesight in any lighting condition.

[ click to continue reading at StudyFinds ]

Robot Turtle, Cool!

from The Wall Street Journal

Forget Humanoids. At MIT, Worms and Turtles Are Inspiring a New Generation of Robots

Daniela Rus, the director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, is developing robots that take more cues from nature than science fiction

By Isabelle Bousquette

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Everyone is obsessed with humanoid robots right now, but the director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory thinks tomorrow’s intelligent physical machines could be something radically different.

Think soft and squishy robots, says Daniela Rus. Picture flexible robots, or even edible ones. 

Her research group has built a robot out of sausage casing (and a small magnet) that could theoretically be eaten and then perform small-scale non-invasive surgeries, Rus said. Another project is a robotic sea turtle named Crush, designed to help monitor sea life, which uses silicone flippers to maneuver around delicate coral reefs. 

Rus was a pioneer of this approach, known as “soft robotics.” Now creative new uses of artificial intelligence are pushing her work to a new level.

“I really wanted to broaden our view of what a robot is,” Rus said. “So if you have a mechanism that’s made out of paper and that moves, is that a robot or not? If you have an origami flower that you attach to a motor, is that a robot or not? To me, it’s a robot.” 

[ click to continue reading at WSJ ]

Pete Rose Uncancelled

from the Los Angeles Times

Pete Rose, ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson reinstated by Major League Baseball, making Hall of Fame election possible

By Steve Henson

Pete Rose in a Cincinnati Reds uniform rounds first base on a baseball diamond
Pete Rose rounds first base after breaking Ty Cobb’s record for career hits at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati in 1985. (Associated Press)

Pete Rose was posthumously removed from Major League Baseball’s permanently ineligible list Tuesday, making the all-time hits leader eligible for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

“Shoeless” Joe Jackson, banned after his participation in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, also was reinstated in a sweeping decision by commissioner Rob Manfred that included other deceased players from the list. All are eligible for election to the Hall of Fame.

An MLB statement released Tuesday referred to it as a “policy decision.”

“Commissioner Manfred has concluded that MLB’s policy shall be that permanent ineligibility ends upon the passing of the disciplined individual.”

[ click to continue reading at LAT ]

Self-obsolescence

from The Free Press

AI Will Change What It Is to Be Human. Are We Ready?

This technology can usher in an age of flourishing the likes of which we have never seen. It will also foment a crisis about what it is to be a person at all.

By Tyler Cowen and Avital Balwit

Are we helping create the tools of our own obsolescence?

If that sounds like a question only a depressive or a stoner would ask, let us assure you: We are neither. We are early AI adopters.

We stand at the threshold of perhaps the most profound identity crisis humanity has ever faced. As AI systems increasingly match or exceed our cognitive abilities, we’re witnessing the twilight of human intellectual supremacy—a position we’ve held unchallenged for our entire existence. This transformation won’t arrive in some distant future; it’s unfolding now, reshaping not just our economy but our very understanding of what it means to be human beings.

We are not doomers; quite the opposite. One of us, Tyler, is a heavy user of this technology, and the other, Avital, is working at Anthropic (the company that makes Claude) to usher it into the world.

Both of us have an intense conviction that this technology can usher in an age of human flourishing the likes of which we have never seen before. But we are equally convinced that progress will usher in a crisis about what it is to be human at all.

[ click to continue reading at The Free Press ]

The Gatekeeper

from The New York Times

If Your Vibe Is Right, He Might Let You Into the Club

Fabrizio Brienza is among New York City’s most experienced gatekeepers, standing watch outside nightclubs and curating the crowd inside.

By Dionne Searcey

The music inside Paul’s Casablanca lounge was thumping on a recent night as sweaty dancers maneuvered under a disco ball. Outside, a line of would-be revelers looked longingly at the entrance. A green velvet rope was nearly all that was separating them from the good times being had inside.

That rope and Fabrizio Brienza.

As the “door” of the lounge, in SoHo, Mr. Brienza is in charge of plucking patrons from the line to enter. Only a choice few get in.

“I curate the vibe of the place,” said Mr. Brienza, who has worked at Paul’s for five years and estimates that on busy weekends he turns away hundreds of people who don’t fit that vibe. Which is defined solely by him.

Mr. Brienza is on the front lines of gate-keeping in a city that thrives on exclusivity, giving rise to power brokers around every corner.

[ click to continue reading at NYT ]

Archives