AltWeeklies Wire
Did Romance Exist Before Movies?new
Hollywood perfected it with sophisticated women and beautiful men trading witty dialogue while overcoming artificial obstacles to the kind of rapturous love that only had to last until the words "The End" left us to imagine that they could keep it up for the ensuing lifetimes.
Amour, Amour, Amaronenew
In honor of Valentine's Day, I propose a toast with an imperfect, traditional and rustic red wine. A deep, broad-shouldered wine with which to contemplate life in the vice of winter, and sounding most like "amour," Amarone appears to me an excellent choice.
Artvoice |
Paula Paradise |
02-08-2008 |
Food+Drink
Greatest White Wine On Earthnew
What follows is my modest plea for sloughing off your comfortable, hand-knitted cardigan of a white—e.g. Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio—for just a few bottles of what might be the greatest white wine on this earth.
Artvoice |
Paula Paradise |
01-31-2008 |
Food+Drink
X.J. Kennedy's Latest Disappointsnew
While the usual X.J. Kennedy suspects—rhyme-and-meter mastery; a playful, often sardonic personality—thrive throughout, Peeping Tom's Cabin suffers from lethargy of theme.
Songs Contain Strong Storytellingnew
While their penchant for snippet songs hasn’t been completely cast away, the shaggy and unpolished, unfinished nature of the songs largely has — at least on the band’s latest, Whitespace Differences (Tinhorn Planet) — and been replaced by loops, electronic sputtering and lush, synthetic arrangements.
'American Poets in the 21st Century': The New Poeticsnew
With apocryphal proclamations ("poetry is dead") being as common as formal innovations, the task of understanding where today's poetry fits in literary history and who is writing it is incredibly loaded.
The 2008 Horse Racenew
The coverage is all about who's in the lead -- not why or how. We all love a winner, issues be damned. We're the cheering mob with our life savings on the line, and they're the horses.
Artvoice |
Michael I. Niman |
01-25-2008 |
Commentary
The Art of Lyingnew
Much of the critical response to the film adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel, Atonement, has focused on the film's epic scope and the intensely but tragically romantic story it tells. There has even been some comparison with James Cameron's Titanic.
Tags: Atonement, Joe Wright
'Charlie Wilson's War': Mr. Wilson's World Ordernew
Well, finally the American film industry has done it. At last, there's a movie about American foreign policies and programs in the Middle East and West Asia, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that Americans can feel good about.
Tags: Mike Nichols, Charlie Wilson's War
Egalitarian Bubbles & Good Whiskeynew
From mid-November to January 1, those of us in wine retail find our lives tossed upon the high seas.
Artvoice |
Paula Paradise |
12-21-2007 |
Food+Drink
Wolf Blitzer, I Have News for Younew
Wolf: News is not entertainment. A political forum is not the Jerry Springer Show, despite your fondest fantasies of how you would like to transform the debates.
Tags: media
The Age of the Loan Dronesnew
With rising tuition rates, cutbacks in government aid, a job market that never fails to disappoint and an alarming display of fiscal irresponsibility among young Americans, more and more members of "Generation Debt" are accumulating debts of unmanageable proportions.
Tags: Education
Plastic Poisonnew
Phthalates protect plastic by making it more malleable, but a growing number of scientific studies suggest that while protecting plastic, certain phthalates are poisoning people. One place where toxic phthalates are particularly problematic is in children's toys.
Artvoice |
Michael I. Niman |
12-17-2007 |
Environment
Tags: environment
Neil Young's Finest Momentsnew
How do you pick just a handful of songs from the 40-year career of rock’s most esteemed, chameleon-like, oft-copied (never duplicated), guitar-thrashing icon?
Tags: Neil Young, concerts
Shopping at the End of the Worldnew
This year's Black Friday shop-a-thon bested last year's sales numbers by more than eight percent. This might seem weird, given the collapse of the dollar, the epidemic of mortgage foreclosures, the expanding pension and healthcare crisis, peak-oil-induced soaring energy costs and the overall meltdown of the economy.
Artvoice |
Michael I. Niman |
11-30-2007 |
Commentary
