The latest issue of The New Yorker has a few great pieces.
First, Anthony Lane lets it rip in reviewing "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers":

Onscreen, Jackson braids the two strands together, adding the tale of fellow-hobbits Merry and Pippin, who, in a twist guaranteed to make environmentalists spill their carrot juice for joy, are literally hugged by trees. We also get ... a flawless white horse that, if you give a little whistle, gallops in from nowhere, though only in slow motion. And lo, the name of this steed is Shadowfax, or, as it was told in the olden tongue, Palmpilot.
...Gollum, who guides Frodo on his quest, is white-skinned and blue-veined, like a moldering cheese, and his shrunken frame is topped by a triangular head with protruding eyes. Think of Ross Perot after ten years on the Atkins diet, and you're almost there.
...In essence, the worthy folk of Edoras, under their king Théoden (Bernard Hill), have retreated to Helm's Deep, where they are besieged by Orcs, Uruk-hai, and other evildoers who come bearing hard consonants. It is a close and vicious fight, but at last the long vowels of Théoden and Aragorn, aided by the soft fricatives of Gandalf, carry the wordy day.

Second, Robert Sullivan has a wonderful spoof of the New York Times' weekly real estate feature "If You're Thinking of Living In...," which profiles a neighborhood in the tri-state area:

Dan and Daniella Daniels plan to retire in Hob Nob. They love their home, which they have renovated twice in the past six years—first by adding three bedrooms on the second floor, and then, last fall, by tearing down the house itself and replacing it with an apartment on the Upper West Side. "This is a wonderful place to bring up kids," said Daniella, whose children come home from boarding school in Maine during the holidays each year. "I wouldn't leave here if you paid me, which is why we don't plan on going anywhere unless we get a really good price for our house."

(Thanks to Gawker for the link.)

Finally, David Remnick has a wonderful appreciation of the retiring Vaclav Havel:

Havel is a liberal—and, unlike many American liberals, he is proud to proclaim it. As he begins to make his exit, it is worth adding up what his liberalism has wrought. He helped bring freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of commerce to his country. The Czech Republic is a member of NATO and will soon join the European Union. Czechs (Slovaks, too) travel at their pleasure. But Havel has also, unlike some other European leaders, refused to renounce, or even flinch from, the potential of power, even armed power, in the name of security and justice. His government pushed (in vain) for the West to intervene more quickly and completely in Rwanda. He pressed for armed intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo. And now, in the age of stateless terrorism, he is unabashedly in favor, as he said in New York, of the principle that "evil must be confronted in its womb and, if there is no other way to do it, then it has to be dealt with by the use of force."
Among Havel's myriad achievements, one of the most lasting is that he has helped to reorder our thinking about artist-intellectuals and political influence. Who is left to prize the fevered delusions of Sartre and Pound, the selective political blindnesses of Aragon and Shaw, when there is the clear-eyed example of Havel? Who is left to question that a thinking person, profound and humane, can find a place in real politics, both in opposition and in power? Countless countries still seem doomed to autocracy without a homegrown version of its antidote. Havel's journey has shown a way out. He leaves the Castle having provided the gift of normalcy to his people, and having restored to many others the dimensions and vigor of the liberal idea.