Harry Parker has died. He was a legend — a real legend, not one cobbled together by press agents and trickery — and coaching Harvard crews to five decades of victories was the least of his greatness. Start with Craig Lambert’s evocative appreciation. Then go on to Craig’s lovely book, Mind Over Water.

What would the meanest, toughest novelist have to say about social media, gay bankers, memoirs and more? Joan Schenkar, author of The Talented Miss Highsmith, serves up some probable responses.

In 1989, my stepchildren gave me an Eddie Bauer watch for Christmas. A few months ago, I accidentally wore it when I went swimming in the Caribbean. Once it was waterproof. No longer. It stopped. I took it to the cheapo watch repair in the 86th Street subway. The Eddie Bauer watch, new, cost no more than $75. The guy said it would be $50 to fix.

I gave it to the cheapo repair guy — no charge — so he could repair it and resell it. I bought a $27 Timex. Great watch. (How do I know? The child hates it.)

The other day the strap on the Timex broke. I took it to 86th Street to be replaced. There in the case was the Eddie Bauer watch. Fixed. On sale. For $27.

So I bought it.  

Frank Delaney is one of those Joyceans who can recite ”Ulysses” from memory. Share the knowledge? Try and stop him. Every week he invites listeners to join him as he deconstructs the book line by line. And they do, by the thousands — his podcast is about to hit a million downloads. What’s the attraction? Maybe that he grew up in Ireland and lived in Dublin, reads Greek, Latin, old Irish, new Gaelic, colloquial and expressive phrases in both English and Irish, and created “Word of Mouth,” the BBC’s award-winning program on language. Tenacity? Frank has just finished Chapter 3; at this rate, he’ll finish in 27 years. Even if you loathe James Joyce, there’s magic in his voice. To experience Delaney on Joyce, click here.

You don’t expect to like Herman of the newly released film “Hello Herman,” starring the devilishly cute Garrett Backstrom and the subtly dynamic and roughly handsome Norman Reedus (of AMC’s “Walking Dead”). We meet sixteen-year-old Herman on his way to massacre 35 fellow high school students.

Reedus is the online journalist Lax Morales, whom Herman emails from inside the chained doors of his high school gym where he stands knee deep in bodies. Herman wants to tell Morales his story. Morales doesn’t expect to like Herman either. The dialog between the two takes place after Herman’s incarceration. With lots of help from flashbacks, we are drawn deeply into the worlds of both characters.

The intent of this surprisingly touching film, with a screenplay by John Buffalo Mailer, is not to excuse Herman’s horrific act. Rather, under Michelle Danner’s sensitive direction, a veil is lifted on how evil gets layered into character over time. We witness a once innocent boy become isolated, alienated, and brutally bullied by his peers. We see how what the poet W.H. Auden wrote, is true: “Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.”

Wisely, the blood in the movie is limited to video games. The shots fired by Herman — and captured on the head-mounted camera he wears that fateful day — end in freeze frames that show only his victim’s terror. And there is something wonderful about the filmmaker’s decision to eliminate scenes that mirror today’s action movies, where a gun-wielding hero stands godlike over the carnage he’s wrought. It also keeps this disquieting and deeply moving film appropriate for younger audiences.

Mailer originally wrote "Hello Herman" as a play in response to the Columbine shootings, and it spawned the Hello Herman Project, which uses this drama in schools to inspire conversation on bullying between adults and kids. The film promises to be a new asset in this effort.

In one theory of early trauma, the traumatized child encapsulates his injured soul in a safe place in his imagination, a place where violence — and human feeling — can never again reach him. That’s where Herman seems to live. But in his final interview with Morales before his execution, something breaks through to Herman’s long ago broken heart — and he weeps violently, saying that he is sorry.

Love does not save the day in this disturbing film; but you certainly can feel how it might have. And you may not like Herman, but in the end, this viewer anyway wanted to embrace him. [To rent the film now or see where it’s playing, click here.]

from "’Good Will Hunting" (1997)

Marty Arnold was the deputy editor of The New York Times Magazine when I was writing often there. One piece was a murder investigation: the killing of a 13-year-old boy in a suburban schoolyard. Four boys had been arrested; two of them were brothers and had been convicted. I quickly discovered they were innocent, so I asked to interview them. Their father called Marty: “Is Jesse Kornbluth who he says he is?” Marty’s reply: “You better fucking believe it.” When Marty told me about the call, he put his hand on my shoulder and added one line: “If we find your car burning on the side of the road, we’ll know you got the story.” You can go for a long time on support like that.

From the publisher’s catalogue, [REDACTED’s] first novel in twelve years, weighing in at 512 pages:

This is an extraordinary story of botany, exploration and desire, spanning across much of the 19th century. The novel follows the fortunes of the brilliant Alma [REDACTED] (daughter of a bold and charismatic botanical explorer) as she comes into her own within the world of plants and science. As Alma’s careful studies of moss take her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, the man she loves draws her in the opposite direction — into the realm of the spiritual, the divine and the magical. Alma is a clear-minded scientist; Ambrose is a Utopian artist. But what unites this couple is a shared passion for knowing — a desperate need to understand the workings of this world, and the mechanism behind of all life. [REDACTED] is a big novel, about a big century. Exquisitely researched and told at a galloping pace, this story novel soars across the globe — from London, to Peru, to Philadelphia, to Tahiti, to Amsterdam and beyond. It is written in the bold, questing spirit of that singular time. Alma is a witness to history, as well as maker of history herself. She stands on the cusp of the modern, with one foot still in the Enlightened Age, and she is certain to be loved by readers across the world.

130 wind turbines, 400 feet high, in Nantucket Sound — who wouldn’t want that natural, cheap energy? A lot of people, as it turns out. (Including the Kennedys.) ‘Cape Spin! An American Power Struggle’ tells the funny/tragic story of this project. It’s good. (My friends made it.) For tickets, click here.

After, try getting this woman out of your head. Her optimism, her love of her friend, her lack of filter — for most of the movie, these charm you. But there comes a moment when you lose patience with Frances. She’s no longer a young woman trying to find a place for herself in her own life, she’s a screw-up, a dingbat, a flop. How does she change, "grow up," become a new and better incarnation of the woman we loved in the beginning? That occurs off-screen. The movie is blighted by these two moments: the extra beat of bumbling, the absent beat of explication. But these are quibbles. "Frances Ha" is an affirmation and a delight. And the final 30 seconds are the most satisfying I’ve experienced in a movie theater in a long time. 

It takes large stones to begin a show in a noisy, jammed New York club by coming out solo, dropping to your knees and howling like an Idaho wolf. Josh Ritter did that. He began his second song, also solo. Then, one by one, the other musicians stepped onstage and, like artists who know exactly how good they are and what it took to get that good, Ritter and the Royal City Band presented a demonstration of what adult rock music can be: smart and powerful, loud and tender, wise and innocent. I have seen Josh Ritter perform dozens of times; I’ve never seen a show like this. The arc of his new CD — from his wife’s kick-in-the-gut announcement that their marriage was over to a wish for joy to all, ex-wife explicitly included — was the spine of the show, but not more than that; Ritter curated his catalogue and delivered it with fire and precision. And the band! Not just crisp, but honed. Of course this crowd knew all the words. And not only sang along, but sang a tears-in-the-eyes-beautiful counterpoint in a favorite number. We hit the street buzzing, humming the tunes, like Broadway in the golden age. So I’m looking at you, you smart people in the cities ahead: Pittsburgh, Richmond, Charleston, Charlotte, Nashville, Knoxville, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Lansing, Denver, Sun Valley and Lenox. Tickets here. Joy guaranteed. You find a better deal, let me know.

Garland Jeffreys, friend of the site, is a kickass ageless rocker who can’t stop creating. His last CD, The King of In Between, went into heavy rotation when it was released and hasn’t slipped off my personal hit parade. Now he’s raising money for his new CD. But click on his picture and let him tell you.

Ann Medlock, also a friend of the site, is the force behind The Giraffe Heroes Project, which identifies and honors people who stand up for what they believe — people who stick their necks out. Now she’s launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund "Two Tall Tales," a popup book for kids that shows how the giraffe got its long neck — by being brave and caring. She’s made a terrific video to pitch her project.  And, if you’re moved, help her move.

"Gentleman," the new video by Psy. (His last video, "Gangnam Style," now has 1.5 billion views.)

Norah Jones. Bob Dylan’s "Forever Young." At the memorial service for Steve Jobs.

Gretchen Rubin, Tim Ferris, Cool Hunting, Amanda Hesser — not a shabby lineup. Well, move over, kids, because there’s a new member of the team: me. It’s like this: There’s this service called Quarterly. You pick a contributor, plunk down your subscription fee, and, four times a year, you get a mystery package. (If you sign up for me, you have a pretty good idea that it will rain some sort of culture on your head, but … you never know.) Hint about my first box: When it arrives, odds are good that many will be buzzing about this subject. I give you a deeper, smarter, possibly more fun look, and from several angles. But I can say no more. Here’s Quarterly. And here’s my contributor’s page, with a photo taken, for a fee that was a bitch to negotiate, by our child.

My friend Georgia Shreve is having a concert this Friday, May 3, at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall. I asked her for a preview: “My concert brings together the loves of my creative life: literature and music. I’m fascinated with the work of T.S. Eliot, and I have chosen ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ a poem that is an early and iconic work not just for him, but for Modernism. The New York Times referred to the initial piano-vocal performance as ‘an expansive, psychologically pointed setting of the poem in an artfully blended performance…’” The concert will feature ‘Prufrock’ as performed by a chamber orchestra, along with a performance of Shreve’s Piano Concerto, by the Manhattan Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Tickets are available online via Carnegie Hall.

Would you run to a film with a gloppy one-word title? I wouldn’t. But having chosen our last film — Danny Boyle’s loathsome ‘Trance’ — the choice wasn’t mine. And the New York Times review was enthusiastic. And ‘Mud’ stars Matthew McConaughey. So off we went. Verdict: a terrific movie, acutely written, brilliantly acted, tense and funny. And original, which, is this season of sequels, is almost reason enough to see it.