Paula Marantz Cohen | The Smart Set

My Cousin Lenny

Paula Marantz Cohen — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 12:30:00 +0000

With the debut of the Bradley Cooper movie, Maestro, we were reminded of writer Paula Marantz Cohen’s testimonial to the inimitable Leonard Bernstein some years back. She and Cooper, though a generation apart and from different backgrounds, were both fascinated by Lenny. Here’s her take from 2017. For our third piece in our Oscar series, […]

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In Search of Proust’s Genius

Paula Marantz Cohen — Mon, 13 Nov 2023 12:30:00 +0000

Can a work of art be deeply flawed and still be great? One of the reasons that some once-revered works in the Western canon have been treated so shabbily in recent years is that, once a new lens is introduced that illuminates their flaws, critics have been exceptionally severe. But great things need a certain […]

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A Mink

Paula Marantz Cohen — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 11:30:00 +0000

When we consider the predatory behavior of high-profile individuals like Andrew Cuomo, Charlie Rose, and Matt Lauer, we tend to think that they were driven by lust and egotistical entitlement. We fail to take into account the societal expectations that prevailed a mere 50 or 60 years ago when these men were boys. Within the […]

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The Status of the Book in the Age of Digital Media

Paula Marantz Cohen — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 13:03:14 +0000

Park Avenue was festooned with tulips as we looked for parking on our way to the 62nd annual New York International Antiquarian Book Fair. The Fair was being held this spring, as it is every spring, at the Armory, a neo-Gothic structure that once housed the so-called “Silk Stocking” Seventh Regiment, owing to its location […]

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Books and Bias

Paula Marantz Cohen — Mon, 24 May 2021 13:59:11 +0000

I am a fan of Rex Stout’s detective novels. While so much during this pandemic has caused me stress and reinforced a sense of loneliness, these novels are familiar friends who induce calm and joy. I have had them on my shelves for decades, some probably inherited from my father, born in 1925, and wide-ranging and eclectic in his reading. In other words, Stout’s novels exist as a world that connects me to that of […]

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Getting Inked

Paula Marantz Cohen — Thu, 05 Mar 2020 12:30:44 +0000

When I saw that the Tattoo Convention was underway at the Philadelphia Convention Center recently, I decided to take a look. I wanted diversion, and I’m a sucker for conventions. Having attended The Board Game Convention, The Flower Show, and The Home Show, why not the Tattoo Show? All these events had been crowded and lively, but the Tattoo Convention was the most colorful: decorated human flesh being more eye-catching than Pandemic, peonies, and patio furniture. I was an interloper at […]

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Getting Mad

Paula Marantz Cohen — Mon, 26 Aug 2019 11:30:48 +0000

In July of 2019, it was announced that MAD Magazine was going to cease publishing new issues of its publication after August. This week, we’re publishing essays that mark the end of an era for American satire. On the Fourth of July, 2019, MAD Magazine announced it would stop publishing new content. The magazine was […]

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Herman Wouk’s Legacy

Paula Marantz Cohen — Tue, 28 May 2019 20:00:33 +0000

Herman Wouk, the best-selling novelist, died on Friday, May 17, at the age of 103. Among his best-known novels are The Caine Mutiny, The Winds of War, and War and Remembrance (the latter two about World War II, inspired by his time in the Navy in the South Pacific). For me, however, Wouk will always […]

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The Paradox of Pointe

Paula Marantz Cohen — Mon, 15 Apr 2019 11:30:25 +0000

I just came from a performance of Giselle, the classic ballet in which the heroine, a peasant girl, falls in love with a prince and then dies when she discovers that he is betrothed to a noblewoman. I love this ballet and watched it with rapt attention, but I was struck, in the context of […]

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The Regressive Magic of Tidying Up

Paula Marantz Cohen — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 14:25:38 +0000

In 2012, a good deal of popular attention greeted a book, translated from the Japanese, entitled The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. The book was, as its title announced, about decluttering and organizing the home, but it overlaid these mundane chores with a missionary zeal that somehow spoke to […]

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