AltWeeklies Wire
What Political Reporters Wantnew
In the end, what the media wants is A Story. How they get it is determined by little things that most often don't really matter. Which is why the AP last week ran a story on how its joint poll with Yahoo! News shows that among pet owners John McCain beats Barack Obama 42 percent to 37 percent. Which doesn't mean squat.
Baltimore City Paper |
Brian Morton |
07-22-2008 |
Commentary
'Mamma Mia!' Cast Sings Much Evilnew
Like those freakish deep-sea creatures living happily in a toxic soup of methane brine miles beneath the water's surface, the cast of Mamma Mia! is unaware they're living in an equally noxious ABBA-rich environment.
Baltimore City Paper |
Violet Glaze |
07-22-2008 |
Reviews
Baltimore's Bail Bonds Industry Is Huge, Complicated, and Largely Unregulatednew
Law professor Doug Colbert estimates that bail bondsmen statewide make between $100 and $150 million each year. It's a system that Colbert would like to see reformed -- with a supervised release program for nonviolent and minor offenders taking the place of the current system, where it all comes down to cash and who can pay it.
Baltimore City Paper |
Christopher Landers |
07-08-2008 |
Crime & Justice
'After Hours at the Almost Home' Captures Wait-staff Dynamicsnew
From the crisscrossing, interconnected perspectives of haggard wage slaves, After Hours at the Almost Home documents a single late shift at a fictitious Denver bar.
Baltimore City Paper |
Raymond Cummings |
07-08-2008 |
Fiction
Scott Douglas' Memoir is a Love Story to Public Librariansnew
His librarian vignettes are entertaining, scenes of crazy patrons and even crazier co-workers. But while everyone can relate to stories about neighborhood characters and Office Space-esque bureaucracy, Douglas' humor can take them only so far.
Baltimore City Paper |
Tina Plottel |
07-08-2008 |
Nonfiction
Andrew Blechman Checks in on What's Really Going Down in Retirement Communitiesnew
Blechman goes where few under the age of 50 have dared go when he probes at the smelly underbellies of America's age-restricted retirement communities.
Baltimore City Paper |
Adrienne Martini |
07-08-2008 |
Nonfiction
Arthur Jones Charts the Rocky Life of M. Scott Pecknew
Peck rarely practiced what he preached in his master work, The Road Less Traveled.
Baltimore City Paper |
Violet Glaze |
07-08-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Usher's Maturity Makes You Long for His Childish Waysnew
He even reprints Corinthians 13:11 ("when I became a man, I put away childish things") in the liner notes, just to beat you over the head with the point.
Baltimore City Paper |
Al Shipley |
07-08-2008 |
Reviews
Wolf Parade Shows a Mature, Polished Side on 'At Mount Zoomer'new
Part of it is the recording: It sounds more professional. The drums are mixed down and don't have that ragged, recorded-in-a-concrete-closet feeling. The record has more interest in melody--guitars are used as paint instead of gasoline.
Baltimore City Paper |
Michael Byrne |
07-08-2008 |
Reviews
Half-Baked Record Nerd Oddities From Dennis Wilson and Droids Resurfacenew
In the late '70s, both these albums were wonders of displacement--either too far behind or ahead of the time to achieve much more than a ripple.
Baltimore City Paper |
Brandon Soderberg |
07-08-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: space, epic, Dennis Wilson, legacy, Pacific Ocean Blue, Repressed, Star Peace, stoner rock, The Droids
Roger Spottiswoode's Western-Do-Gooder-in-the-Third-World Flick Lacks Heartnew
The script suggests that the whole point of the brutal Japanese invasion of China in the 1930s was the moral redemption of a cynical British journalist and a guilty American ex-army wife.
Baltimore City Paper |
Geoffrey Himes |
07-08-2008 |
Reviews
Michael Dante Wilson, Jan. 23, 1973-June 5, 2008new
To fans and peers in Baltimore music, he was Mr. Wilson, a charismatic rapper with the long-running group JI-900 and the organizer of countless concerts and events. But to perhaps an even greater number of people, Michael Dante Wilson was simply a warm and genuine human being.
Baltimore City Paper |
Al Shipley |
07-01-2008 |
Music
Young Novelists Navigate Ambition and Their 20s in Coming-of-Age Flick, 'Reprise'new
Although it has its moments, for the most part it is a shopworn story of young, well-off people who confuse celebrity with greatness and suffering with an unsatisfactory job.
Baltimore City Paper |
Martin L. Johnson |
07-01-2008 |
Reviews
German Director Matthias Glasner Crafts a Remarkably Human Examination of Fear and Desirenew
While its first 20 minutes, which include a lengthy, brutal rape scene, suggest leanings toward artsploitation, the rest of the movie, released straight to DVD this week, is sober and completely uninterested in shock value.
Baltimore City Paper |
Steve Erickson |
07-01-2008 |
Reviews
Inside Baltimore's Home-Birth Undergroundnew
Disenchanted with a medical system that treats birth as an emergency instead of an emergence, seeking an alternative to the tubes and wires and monitors of a high-tech birth, some women are stepping outside of the hospital to have their babies. And some say their numbers are growing. But is home birth safe?
Baltimore City Paper |
Michelle Gienow |
07-01-2008 |
Sex
