AltWeeklies Wire
Black Kids Keeps a Playful Attitude on its Debut Full-Lengthnew
Few indie-rock albums are solely concerned with love, but Black Kids' debut, Partie Traumatic, has got it on the brain, both the mushy and the gushy kind -- to employ the kind of dirty rhyme the band might use.
Washington City Paper |
Ben Westhoff |
07-24-2008 |
Reviews
Tags: Black Kids, Partie Traumatic
Out-of-State Same-Sex Couples May Soon Wed in Mass.new
Massachusetts moved one step closer to parity for same-sex couples last Tuesday, when the state Senate unanimously passed a bill repealing a 1913 law prohibiting out-of-state gay couples from marrying here.
Dig Boston |
Scott Sayare |
07-24-2008 |
LGBT
David Carr: From Crackhead to Potato Headnew
We investigate the New York Times reporter's odd, ongoing obsession with the spud.
New York Press |
David Blum |
07-24-2008 |
Media
Erk tha Jerk Makes Bay Area Hip-Hop a Whole Lot Smarternew
Erk tha Jerk is a slender guy with horn-rimmed glasses and a gallows humor. He isn't afraid to clown someone using insults that could potentially go over that person's head. And his most famous song, "I'm So Dumb (the Hyphy Diss Song)," might have been the most petulant thing to air on KMEL this year.
East Bay Express |
Rachel Swan |
07-24-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
After Ten Years in Berkeley, Eric Drooker Still Dreams of New Yorknew
His drawings have a very specific time and place (Brooklyn or Manhattan, usually in the 1970s, almost always the same view), but they employ metaphors that anyone could pick up and understand. His mass-produced poster art, some of which is collected in the new postcard book, Slingshot, operates in much the same way.
East Bay Express |
Rachel Swan |
07-24-2008 |
Art
In James Rollins' New Novel, Prophets are Made, Not Bornnew
A Sacramento veterinarian before he became a novelist, Rollins has pondered the depth and breadth of scientific possibility and its ethical consequences.
East Bay Express |
Anneli Rufus |
07-24-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
Tags: James Rollins, The Last Oracle
Polyamorous Lovers Keep Their Options, and Their Relationships, Opennew
In the mainstream, monogamy has been a cultural assumption on par with monotheism, air conditioning and covered sex parts. There have been strains of resistance throughout the 20th century -- swingers, lesbian collectives, polyfidelitous communes -- but the term "polyamory" didn't appear until the 1990s.
Creative Loafing (Sarasota) |
Justin Richards |
07-24-2008 |
Culture
Hard-Boiled, Soft-Centered: What does Casablanca mean in a post-9/11 world?new
Conservatives will lay nostalgic claim to Casablanca as an exemplar of tradition to be gotten back to; liberals like it, because its idealism is worldy, not naïve, and tough enough to triumph over both wrongness and cynicism.
It endures as a classic because both parties are essentially correct.
Charleston City Paper |
Jonathan Kiefer |
07-23-2008 |
Movies
Tags: Casablanca, Michael Curtiz
David Sedaris Continues with Un-Fiction in 'Flames'new
Sedaris, in addition to the previous charge of not being a journalist, is now also found guilty of being entertaining.
Charleston City Paper |
Jon Santiago |
07-23-2008 |
Nonfiction
In Catherine O’Flynn’s New Novel, Your Heart Breaks -- Eventuallynew
O'Flynn, author of What Was Lost, gives a pretty spot-on description of mall life. Green Oaks, the Birmingham shopping center detailed in the novel, is a nightmarish complex, and she gives an accurate insight on how suffocating it may be to work there long after you should have moved on.
Charleston City Paper |
Susan Cohen |
07-23-2008 |
Fiction
Stories about Stories: Kevin Brockmeier’s new story collection retells (relatively) new talesnew
Each of the 13 stories in The View from the Seventh Layer is some ingenius variation of narrative genre — there are four fables, a ghost story, an alien abduction story, a fantasy, a science-fiction romance, a situation comedy of sorts, and even a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story.
Only a few of these breezy and sometimes elegant stories subscribe to that 20th-century dogma of short-story writing that Michael Chabon has called — in the tongue-and-cheek introduction to McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales — the “contemporary, quotidian, plotless, moment-of-truth revelatory story.”
Charleston City Paper |
John Stoehr |
07-23-2008 |
Fiction
A New York Teen Tries Deals with Life in 'The Wackness'new
These days, if you were to drop stale slang terms like the adjective forms of "wack" or "dope," you'd probably sound, well, pretty wack.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-23-2008 |
Reviews
'Up the Yangtze' Reveals China's Growing Painsnew
The New China could well be the dominant power of the 21st century, but cinema frequently trains its cameras on the Old China.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Curt Holman |
07-23-2008 |
Reviews
Moodswing: Lovely Junknew
Blooming incongruously to my predicament.
Creative Loafing (Atlanta) |
Hollis Gillespie |
07-23-2008 |
Comedy
Let Your Geek Flags Fly at Star Trek the Exhibitionnew
Local Trekkies (and Trekkers) continue their flight on the Enterprise--albeit vicariously, expensively and in a stationary setting.
San Diego CityBeat |
AnnaMaria Stephens |
07-23-2008 |
Recreation
