Winter 2007 THE SCHOLAR AT 75 An Educated Guess Ted Widmer Who knew that mixing the intelligent and the idiosyncratic would yield a long life for a certain small quarterly? The Greatest Hits collected by Richard E. Nicholls Highlights from 300 issues of the magazine ARTICLES Not Compassionate, Not Conservative Ethan Fishman Psuedo-conservatisim revisited: critiquing the Bush years Scooter and Me Nick Bromell Professing liberal doubt in an age of fundamentalist fervor Fear of Falling James McConkey Working in the mop-and-bucket brigade in college helped to create the perspectives of a lifetime Glorious Dust Robert Roper The posthumous masterwork of an influential black historian tells how slavery undermined the Confederacy Fired Emily Bernard Sometimes a friendship ends for no good reason FICTION Wheeling Ann Beattie Cowboys and Indians Louis Begley ARTS The Ballad in the Street Alan Trachtenberg Listening for the muffled strains of a national culture The Edgy Optimist Gene Santoro At 76, saxist Sonny Rollins is still on top of his game When Maestros Were Maestros Janet Frank Leopold Stokowski brought real joy to music making POETRY Four Poets Langdon Hammer New work by Peter Filkins, Marilyn Nelson, Caitiona O'Reilly, and Robert Pinsky BOOKS Reviews A new Aeneid; Thomas Eakins portrayed; the worst century; I.B. Singer's life; ideal worlds A.E. Stallings, Brenda Wineapple, Charles Trueheart, Benjamin Balint, and Daniel Reid Going Native Morris Dickstein Departments Editor's Note Letter From Istanbul: Group Think Suzanne Scanlon Commonplace Book: Celebrations Collected by André Bernard Works in Progress Gothic tales; God government; fleshlight; hu new; to die for; more The Reader Replies Findings What TJ really meant By Barbara Oberg