Selections from the New Yorker this week

the recombinant city. noncoded DNA, reservoirs of language tissue, left turned on or off like lightswitches in corridors of genes.

a game plan. a unifed vision of the future as represented by liberal ideals. a 'contract with america' of sorts.

a deprivatory chamber, hypoxico, which creates walking-in-the-clouds syndrome, the feeling of light-headedness usually reserved for the lofty.

Peter Viereck, the founder of modern conservatism (piece not available online), a man who felt that its strength lay in being almost identical to American liberalism.

unexpressed desires, the secret code lay within, unexpectedly laid bare: it was there all along. the hidden potential of reality to recreate itself. the motions of growth, a leaf from a tree, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.