AltWeeklies Wire
Spam: It's Not Just for Inboxes Anymorenew

Just in time for the recession, let's take a look at all the wondrous ways to eat Spam.
City Pages (Twin Cities) |
Rachel Hutton |
12-03-2008 |
Food+Drink
Len Barron Brings Einstein Back from the Deadnew

Barron has spent the past 20 years trying to exalt Albert Einstein in his one-man show. He just released a DVD, Portraits of Einstein, with clips of his show and other goodies.
Boulder Weekly |
Dylan Otto Krider |
11-20-2008 |
Performance
A Historian Discusses the FDR/Obama Comparisonnew

After the global economy crashed, pundits began to compare Obama with Roosevelt, the man who saw his nation through both the Great Depression and World War II. But how apt is that comparison? Historian William E. Leuchtenburg explains.
Boulder Weekly |
Pamela White |
11-10-2008 |
Politics
'Awaiting the Heavenly Country' Examines the American Death Cultnew
With generous illustrated examples, Professor Mark S. Schantz depicts an America preoccupied with death. In this America, Shakespeare and militaristic Greek classicists like Herodotus were popular reading, and families of the 1830s and 1840s treasured photographic portraits of the freshly dead, including infants and children.
Shepherd Express |
Eric Beaumont |
11-10-2008 |
Nonfiction
'The B List' Celebrates The So-Called Lower Rung of Auteursnew
If you're looking for a guide through film's funkier tributaries, this is intellectual criticism written with the urgency of a fan juiced to share some odd object of infatuation with a world that likely missed it the first time around.
Baltimore City Paper |
Jess Harvell |
11-04-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Deanne Stillman's 'Mustang' is Heartbreaking and Enragingnew
Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West is an exhaustively researched, eloquently written wake-up call.
Pasadena Weekly |
Bliss |
11-04-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Author Geoff Nicholson Gets Pedestriannew
The Lost Art of Walking explores the creative fuel for history's greatest thinkers.
L.A. Weekly |
Matthew Fleischer |
10-31-2008 |
Nonfiction
Obama Could Be a Great One-Term President

Barack Obama can continue the "permanent campaign" that has characterized the American presidency since 1976. Or he can govern like there's no tomorrow -- and make history.
Maui Time |
Ted Rall |
10-29-2008 |
Commentary
'Veeps' is an Irreverent Guide to the History of the Vice Presidencynew
There are three people on the blue side of the political spectrum who benefited from the selection of the profoundly terrifying Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate: Tina Fey, Bill Kelter, and Wayne Shellabarger.
The Portland Mercury |
Alison Hallett |
10-24-2008 |
Nonfiction
Eastwood Examines a Chapter of LA's Sordid Past in 'Changeling'

Apart from a flashing neon light coda that extends the film 10 minutes too far, Eastwood's drama is an engrossing drama with a keen line of social commentary.
City Pulse |
Cole Smithey |
10-20-2008 |
Reviews
'Bordertown' Depicts True Life and History on the Mexican Bordernew

With Bordertown, Gusky and Johnson intend to provide a historical and cultural narrative that seems to be missing from contemporary conflicts.
Dallas Observer |
Megan Feldman |
10-20-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Joe Biden's Tears Rememberednew
In 1972, after Sen. Joe Biden's wife and child died, I wrote him a note of condolence. That letter is long gone, but not his response to me, which arrived later that winter.
INDY Week |
Steven Petrow |
10-10-2008 |
Commentary
Sarah Vowell Pops a Ladyboner for Puritans in Her New Booknew

In The Wordy Shipmates, she makes the case that the Puritans were not a congregation of book burning, sexually uptight, overly moral goody-goodies. Working out some schoolgirl crush on folks with buckled shoes, she gushes over the Puritans as a literary bunch who relentlessly penned letters, sermons, books, even kept day-to-to diaries.
New York Press |
Brian Pennington |
10-09-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Ink-Stained Kvetches: Where Are All the Editorial Cartoonists Going?new
As newspapers cut back on staff, editorial cartoonists are losing their positions at newspapers across the nation. In Texas, only the San Antonio Express-News, the Houston Chronicle, and the Austin American-Statesman still employ staff cartoonists.
The Texas Observer |
Brad Tyer |
10-08-2008 |
Media
Soul Train's Chicago Rootsnew

The show that put black music on TVs across America got its start in Chicago -- and even after it moved to LA, Chicago kept its own version running daily for nearly a decade.
Chicago Reader |
Jake Austen |
10-06-2008 |
Music