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Abridge This!
by Lawrence Block, Village Voice
Audioshave: What sort of book could be cut in half without losing a certain something?

A Brief History Of Time Balls
by Scott Huler, New York Times
New York City's annual ball drop is probably the greatest single moment of public timekeeping in the world. Yet the Times Square ball is not the world's most important time ball — nor was it the first.

New York Is So Crowded, Everybody's Deserted It
by David W. Chen and Jennifer 8. Lee, New York Times
It should come as no big shock, of course, that New York often takes on a different personality during certain holidays. But this year, it seems, New York has become even more a best-of-times, worst-of-times kind of place, depending on geography and other factors.

Put Your Voice Where Your Mouth Is
by Gary Giddins, New York Times
We have been living in an increasingly lip-synced world for some 75 years, and we have yet to reach the bottom of a slippery slope.

Everyone's Driven To Eat. How Many Arrive In A Bentley?
by Cathy Horyn, New York Times
Amy Fine Collilns, the author of the new book "The God of Driving," and her driving instructor tour New York's eateries.

In Europe, Reality TV Turns Grimmer
by Doreen Carvajal, International Herald Tribune
It is Channel 4 in London that has pushed reality television — or "factual programming" as it is politely called in Britain — to new extremes, even for a country that has become a furiously humming factory for new reality ideas.

Mother Tongue
by Richard Jenkyns, Prospect
What does the fashion for books about the state of hte ENglish language tell us? People care about their language because it forms part of their identity, and part of the resistance to changes in English is a resistance to chnage itself. But correct usage is not an elite affectation; it is a badge of competence.

Name That Decade
by Timothy Noah, Slate
Can we please agree on what era it is we're living in?

A Little Journal For Nearly Every Literary Voice
by Felicia Lee, New York Times
While Threepenny represents the trumph of the bookish little guy int he age of publishing giants and gossip magazines, it is a behemoth in a landscape crowded with 1,000 lliterary magazines.

Stranger Than Fiction
by Blake de Pastino, City Paper
Morgan Rosenberg is the kind of man who speaks of himself in the third person, as if he were not real, and his life were a story so fantastic that only he could tell it. It doesn't take much time in his company to get the sense that this is indeed the case — that Morgan Rosenberg does see himself as having an almost fictional quality, and that nearly every utterance he makes is, in fact, an effort to control the story.

Revealing The Soul Of A Soulless Lawyer
by Sara Rimer, New York Times
He lives at the law firm, blowing off his wife's dinner parties, not to mention the birth of his son. He finds no satisfaction in his work, but he is trapped by his high salary and partner title. He is, in short, a petty, cynical, sexist, miserable, overpaid corporate creep. He is also fictional. But he is apparently all too familiar to thousands of lawyers across the country who are regular readers of his Web log, Anonymous Lawyer.

Baby's First Stop? A Taxi In Queens
by Shaila K. Dewan, New York Times
The holidays have a way of turning simple sadness into tragedy, chance encounters into magic, and mere good luck into a miracle. That was the case on Christmas Eve in Elmhurst, Queens, when a cab driver called 911 to report that his passenger was giving birth and he did not know the way to the nearest hospital.

Hip Hotels With A Kid-Friendly Vibe (Sorry, No Water Slides)
by Jennifer Conlin, New York Times
"These types of hotels are all about making adult environments work for children, not the other way around."

A Motown 'Silent Night' That Echoes Down The Years
by Neely Tucker, Washington Post
In the winter of 1989, I lost my mind and moved from the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to Detroit, an inexplicable adventure that led me to discover sub-zero temperatures, some of the best musicians in the Western Hemisphere and my nominee for the best Christmas songs ever recorded.

'Race' Contestant Has Somebody To Shove
by Andy Dehnart, MSNBC
No penalty, no elimination, no 800-number for information about domestic violence.

Give Me Seasonal Schmaltz
by Gerard Baker, The Times
Christmas captures the defiing characteristic of Americans — their lack of cynicism and scepticism.

The Kindnes Of Strangers
by Ruben Martinez, New York Times
The centuries-old tradition of las posadas is celebrated throughout Mexico and in practically evern Mexican neighborhood in America in the days before Christmas.

Tom And Jerry At Heart Of China's Linguistic Storm
by Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press
The government, which promotes using Mandarin nationwide, wants to stop airing the hit show dubbed in regional dialects.

Eyes Wide Shut
by Charles Taylor, Salon
The world looked away when evil swept through Rwanda. Ten years later, a movie demands that we finally open our eyes.

In Search Of Christmas
by John Leo, U.S. News
The forbidden "C" word is hard to find.

Mincemeat (Whatever It Is) Is Still A Christmas Tradition
by Ed Levine, New York Times
It turns out there is a demand for mince pie. You just have to know where to look, or actually what to listen for: a British accent.

An Illness, A Bracelet, A New Hit
by Marc Santora, New York Times
It seems the yellow wristband is the new red AIDS ribbon and Sydney and Daniel have caught the wave, joining a growing list of people using a colored bracelet to help raise money for a cause.

A Giant Step Forward For Punctuation
by Josh Greenman, Slate
Introducing the long-awaited sarcasm point.

See Spot Run
by Seth Stevenson, Slate
Are commercials really bad for kids?

Invisible Bias
by Chris Berdik, Boston Globe
A group of psychologists claim a test can measure prejudices we harbor without even knowing it. Their cirtics say they are politiczing psychology.

Recipe For A Miracle
by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Boston Globe
Mix impassioned fans with a baseball team that believes in itself as never before, and suddenly a club's strength is redoubled.

Your Blog Or Mine?
by Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times
As Web logs proliferate, the boundaries between public and private are being transformed. Unconstrained by journalistic conventions, bloggers are blurring the lines between public events and ordinary social interactions and changing the way we date, work, teach and live. And as blogs continue to proliferate, citizens will have to develop new understandings about what parts of our lives are on and off the record.

The Chestnuts Of Christmas
by Charles Passy, New York Times
Because of the ins and outs of the music industry, we dust off the same Christmas songs every year.

Hot, Sizzling Temptations, Freshly Fried At Your Stove
by Mark Bittman, New York Times
The cooking method people fear most is the one they love most: frying. Try it once, and you'll be hooked. And on your second try you will come pretty close to mastering the art of frying.

Poems, Bombs, And The Road To Baghdad
by Matthew Doherty, Poetry Magazine
"I'm looking for books," I say. "Iraqi poetry." He's not sure what I mean. "Poems," I say. "Poems. You know?"

When A Knife Is The Gleam In A Cook's Eye
by Matt Lee and Ted Lee, New York Times
So we immersed ourselves in the knife culture, enrolling in skills classes and trolling cutlery stores. We browsed online knife forums and talked to apssionate home cooks and professional chefs to find out what qualities in a blade might make chopping onions a sublime experience.

Stirring Up Science
by Mary Carmichael, Newsweek
The brightest kids have more chances than ever to excel in the lab — but their classmates are struggling.

Life In A Glass House
by Shelley Jackson, Village Voice
One thing an imaginary world needs, I think, is to fail.

Here's The Problem WIth Being So 'Smart'
by Jeffrey J. Williams, Chronicle Of Higher Education
The danger of smart is that it confirms the moves and mannerisms of a new and perhaps equally closed network.

In Paris, Boutiques ANd Cafes Where Chocolatiers Raise The Bar
by Jonathan Hayes, New York Times
Chocolate is a quintessentially democratic pleasure, a breezily nostalgic satisfaction that brings us all back to the roughly level playing field of childhood delight.

Quitting The Paint Factory
by Mark Slouka, Harper's Magazine
On the virtues of idleness.

Roads Gone Wild
by Tom McNichol, Wired
No street signs. No crosswalks. No accidents. Surprise: Making driving seems more dangerous could make it safer.

Sixteen Tons Of Fun
by Dave Eggers, New Yorker
Eric Idle brings the Holy Grail to Broadway.

In Blog We Trust?
by Gayle Keck, Washington Post
Travel web logs are all over the map. Don't get lost.

Anti-Concept Concept Store, The
by Amanda Fortini, New York Times
In their rejection of concept-store pretension, the guerrilla stores have realized its purest expression.

Do-It-Yourself Attack Ad, The
by Clive Thompson, New York Times
This election, technology made things drastically cheaper.

Inkless Magazine, The
by Michael Kimmelman, New York Times
It may be the first inkless (not to mention textless) magazine, if you're not counting those on the Internet, of course.

Purple Is The Color Of Correction
by Kate Jacobs, New York Times
The latest menace to the American education system has nothing to do with standardized tests or McDonald's outposts in school lunchrooms. Instead, it's a venerable symbol of discipline and authority: the red ink that has been used to grade papers for generations.

Underwear For Animated People
by Jascha Hoffman, New York Times
When animators program computer systems to mimic the way interwoven fibers interact with skins — that is, when virtual clothing is put on the virtual person — the results are hard to predict and often go awry.

A Grieving Son's Journey Comes To A Crossroads
by Mark Arax, Los Angeles Times
His father's unsolved murder haunted him for three decades. When the mystery was partly solved, he had to decide how far to search for the whole truth.

Enter Narci-Cinema
by A. O. Scott, New York Times
Movie cameras are still made with thelens fixed on one end and the viewfinder on the back, but these days most consumer-grade video camcorders are equipped with a monitor that swivels around, dissolving the conventional boundary between what is in front of the camera and what, or who, is behind it.

Can The Movies Rescue America?
by Charles Taylor, Salon
In a year when Mel Gibson and Michael Moore exploited our deep divisions, we needed more Incredible films to bring us together.

The Whys Of Art
by Robert Conquest, New Criterion
Changes in art and cultural history have never been easyt o assimilate to politcal or economic changes. But perhaps we have enough evidence to show that particular sub-ideologies, combined wtih or supported by a bureaucratic upsurge, have cuased, or been associated with, what appear to be downhill trends.

The Plot Against Sex In America
by Frank Rich, New York Times
When they start pushing the panic button over "moral values" at the bluest of TV channels, public broadcasting's WNET, in the bluest of cities, New York, you know this country has entered a new cultural twilight zone.

A Feast For A Holiday, Or Everyday Exulting
by Nigella Lawson, New York Times
What I love about cooking is that we can share in other people's festivals.

The Picture Problem
by Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker
Mammography, air power, and the limits of looking.

Lead To Letterman, One Night A Week
by Bill Carter, New York Times
With help from "CSI," "Late Show With David Letterman" is clearly faring better than Jay Leon's "The Tonight Show" on Mondays.

Religion: The Birth Of Jesus
by Jon Meacham, Newsweek
From Mary to the manager, how the Gospels mix faith and history to tell the Christmas story and make the case for Christ.

Little Vegas
by Stephen Janis, City Paper
What can Maryland's troubled history with slot machines tell us about the odds for the future?

La Scala Proudly Emerges From A Drama Of Its Own
by Alan Riding, New York Times
To the astonishment of many, in an opera world where passions can be as heated offstage as on, this particular drama appears to be ending happily.

Playing Doctor
by Joe Yonan, Boston Globe
Why see a doctor when you can test yourself for infertility, diabetes, HIV, colon cancer, and other things? Because maybe that test isn't telling you all you need to know.

Lift Every Voice: PoliCasting On The Rise
by David Weinberger, Personal Democracy Forum
Podcasting rocks. Podcasting is fun. Podcasting is important enough that it will affect politics and democracy in unexpected ways. It could, in fact, turn out to be huge... but first it needs one more genius.

The King And I
by Steve Martin, New York Times
It is fitting that so many major news organizations have asked me to herald the coming to the United States of the artifacts from King Tut's tomb. After all, I'm the one who wrote the silly song about him.

The Supreme Beginner
by David Feige, Los Angeles Times
Most attorneys work their entire careers without appearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Jeffrey Fisher won two cases before the high court this year at the unheard-of age of 33.

In Search Of Lost Time
by Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, New York Times
Why, as I edge toward the end of my 40's, has so much of what I know become impssobile to access on demand? Where are the thoughts that spring forth in the shower but evanesce before they can be recorded, the mental lists that shed items on the way to the supermarket?

You Can't Buy Your Way Out Of A Bureaucracy
by Philip K. Howard, New York Times
No amount of money will rescue a ship that is sinking under the weight of endless rules and bureaucracy.

The Hit We Almost Missed
by Shaun Considine, New York Times
It's official, I guess. Forty years after he recorded it, Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" was just named the greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, a tribute it had previously been given by New Musical Express, Britain's leading pop-music weekly. Quite an honor, considering that the single was almost never released.

TV Chefs That Don't Bite
by Sumana Harihareswara, Salon
If you really want to learn how to cook — as opposed to learning how to "entertain" — stick with these two shows.

Some Points I Must Insist Upon
by Ruth Walker, Christian Science Monitor
Listening to how English is changing sometimes means keeping an ear cocked for what's no longer being said, for words that are falling out of the language.

Lo, A New Age Of Heroes
by Ed Levine, New York Times
Once the Italian hot sandwich was the sole champion, but now it has comrades from the Caribbean and Vietnam.

Feet On The Floor, Please
by Sewell Chan, New York Times
The proposed regulations, totaling 3,900 words, traverse the fuzzy boundaries between public and private space, extending rules of etiquette into the realm of mass transit and specifying proper conduct with a degree of precision that may surprise many passengers.

A Culinary Oasis
by Julian E. Barnes, U.S. News
It's no mirage. How one man's enterprise makes the chow line a dining experience.