Top stories published by Up to a Point in 2017

In this city rapidly vanishing into the chasm between its actual life and its preferred narratives, what people said when they talked about the case of the Central Park jogger came to seem a kind of poetry, a way of expressing, without directly stating, different but…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

Nov 17, 2017

On New York City and class distinctions

Class distinction in New York is more complicated and subtle than any simple taxonomy of bourgeois and bohemian, or rich and middle-class and poor, can encompass. In New York, as Howells was the first to grasp, the professional classes are the middle classes…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

Dec 3, 2017

On freedom of speech, censorship and human progress

The best proponents of freedom of speech do not just demand courage. They say we must not only tell truth to power, we must also tell truth to ourselves. John Stuart Mill was more concerned about the self-censorship imposed by the received…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

Oct 23, 2017

On insecurity and its illusions

My father’s advice when I left Canada for New York was simple: “Never underestimate the other person’s insecurity.” This was excellent counsel, and what trouble I would get into came mostly from forgetting it. Everyone, even the apparently powerful, is struggling inside…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

May 27, 2017

On loving the movies

What does it mean to love the movies? It does not mean to sit mindlessly and blissfully before the screen. It means to believe, first of all, that they are worth the time. That to see three movies during a routine workday or thirty movies a week at a film festival is a good job to have. That…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

May 8, 2017

On the Brazilian way of doing things

The anthropologist Robert DaMatta came up with the theory of jeitinho — literally, “the small way” — to explain the creativity on which Brazilians so pride themselves, positing that because the laws and codes of behavior in Brazil, even after the abolition of…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

May 20, 2017

On the British and bragging

When Britons exaggerate their faults, they are often in fact telegraphing their attributes, practicing an intelectual form of bragging. They do it to prove that they have a sense of humor, that they can laugh at themselves, and that they are secure enough in their achievements to…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

Oct 19, 2017

On laughter and communication

Laughter is a form of communication, which explains why we seldom laugh at funny movies we are watching by ourselves-unless they strike us as really funny, in which case our laughter is accompanied by mental notes to share the joke with friends, which is a form of delayed…

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

Jun 24, 2017

On science and poetry

We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry. The poet, too, is not nearly so concerned with describing facts as with creating images and establishing mental connections.

— Niels Bohr, Danish physicist.

Paulo Henrique Lemos in Up to a Point

Oct 15, 2017

On films and picking our favorites

Robert Altman’s Nashville is one of my favorite films — or, at least I think it is. I haven’t seen it in a while, and the last time I did, I noticed the longueurs more than I ever had before. Maybe the best thing to do with favorite films and books is to leave them be…

2016

2018

These were the top 10 stories published by Up to a Point in 2017. You can also dive into monthly archives for 2017 by using the calendar at the top of this page.

About

Up to a Point

An appreciation of quotes in the English language.

More information