Campaign Diplomacy: Why America May Take A Harder Line Against Russia

Gambling: Go Ahead, Make Their Day
There's obvious allure in a film like the current box-office hit "21," a sexed-up account of the MIT students who took Las Vegas for millions at the blackjack tables in the 1990s. Like the nonfiction book it's based on—Ben Mezrich's "Bringing Down the House"—the film glamorizes card counting, the practice of tracking dealt cards to gain an edge over the house. The idea seems to be, if you can count to 10, you can be a millionaire.

No one's embraced the film more warmly than Vegas. "Casinos were lining up to host the premiere," says Jeff Ma, who led the MIT team and appears in "21." Why would casinos like a movie that shows them getting scammed? Because card counting isn't nearly as easy as "21" makes it look—and Vegas is happy to let you learn that the hard way. "This movie is great for Vegas. It perpetuates the myth that blackjack is beatable," says Ma.

Card counting's not a total sham: when the count is favorable, meaning the deck is full of 10s and face cards, the advantage shifts to the player. But mastering the count takes intense concentration and practice. Most aspiring counters will need several years of table time before they're good enough to make money. And that's assuming they're not caught—counting isn't illegal, but casinos will boot you out if they discover you trying it.

Casinos are taking increasing countermeasures, like dealing from an eight-deck shoe and reshuffling earlier and more often. Insiders say that major houses employ retired card counters to identify active ones, and use facial-recognition software to stop known counters before they place their bets. "If the game doesn't make money for a casino, they won't offer it," says David G. Schwartz, of the University of Nevada's Center for Gaming Research. The fact that they haven't stopped with blackjack says a lot about your chances.
—Tony Dokoupil

Listening Room: Covering Britney
If you're like me, you've had that song from the MacBook Air commercial—the one with the plinky piano, the trombones and the singer who sounds like Feist but isn't Feist—stuck in your head since the ad first aired in January. The single, "New Soul," is so infectious that it's already sold 620,000 copies on iTunes; the singer, Yael Naim, released her self-titled album on March 18, two months ahead of schedule, to capitalize on the momentum. Naim grew up in Tel Aviv, lives in Paris, sings in Hebrew, French and English, and collaborates with West Indian multi-instrumentalist David Donatien. Only someone with that kind of cultural hodgepodge could pull off, without a hint of irony, her album's best song, which is not "New Soul." It's a transfixing version of Britney Spears's hit "Toxic"—an airy jewelry-box jangle, simple and sweet, without any tedious art-house overtones. Naim's distinctive accent (as opposed to Spears's girlish, nasal delivery) dignifies the lyrics: "With a taste of your lips, I'm on a ride, you're toxic, I'm slipping under." This interpretation gives new life to the ghosts of Britney's past—and dimension to Apple's latest flavor of the month.
—Jac Chebatoris

Fast Chat: The First Poet Of Punk
The film director Michael Almereyda (Ethan Hawke's "Hamlet") has assembled a new collection of poetry, "Night Wraps the Sky," by Vladimir Mayakovsky, a Russian futurist who shot himself in 1935 after becoming disillusioned with communism. Adam B. Kushner chatted with Almereyda:

Is Mayakovsky important today?
Mayakovsky was a precursor to performance art, punk and even rap. And there are fundamental qualities in his poetry— conscience and compassion—that still feel urgent.

A Russian futurist is a proto-punker?
He had an anything-goes attitude, but also a hopefulness, rooted in the punkish idea that you can sweep everything away and start clean.

How do Russians regard him today?
Stalin embraced Mayakovsky after his suicide, issuing a proclamation that a failure to appreciate Mayakovsky is a crime. So Russians were force-fed Mayakovsky, and they developed a distaste for him. Decades later, there's a reawakening.

© 2008