AltWeeklies Wire
Marisa Silver's Ares Ramirez Only Seems Normalnew

Silver gives voice to real outsiders, society's castoffs who eke out precarious livings around the edges of that other failure, the Salton Sea, a river deflected long ago in hopes of creating a desert oasis for tourists, and now so polluted and oversalinated that it washes up trash and dead fish by the thousand.
L.A. Weekly |
Ella Taylor |
05-27-2008 |
Fiction
Five Bands That Could Pass as Creepy Cultsnew

Dark Meat isn't the first hairy-scary music ensemble to be mistaken for some bizarre quasi-religious cult. Here are a few more that could qualify for a tax exemption.
NOW Magazine |
Tim Perlich |
05-27-2008 |
Music
The Angry Grammarian: How the Capitalization of "Internet" Foretold the Doom of Print Journalismnew
The copyediting rules applied to Internet-related terms go a long way in showing just how unprepared newspapers were for the Internet’s arrival, and how fundamental their misunderstanding was of it. So now, thanks to complete unpreparedness on the part of newspapers, we’re left with a mess of rules rife with inconsistencies.
Philadelphia Weekly |
Jeffrey Barg |
05-27-2008 |
Commentary
Riverside's Castle Park: Southern California's Minigolf Meccanew

Sure, this bastard love child of real golf and Chutes and Ladders is what Satan would make Tiger Woods play if he wound up in Hell. And yeah, it's just about the tackiest sport ever invented. But minigolf is also supremely relaxing.
L.A. Weekly |
Gendy Alimurung |
05-27-2008 |
Recreation
Colony Collapse Disorder is Putting Honeybees and Our Food Supply at Risknew

Since November 2006, there have been reports of honeybees flying away from their colonies and disappearing. Beekeepers are reporting losses of between 30 and 90 percent of their hives. No one seems to know exactly why the bees aren't returning to the hive. But the phenomenon is more than alarming -- it's being called a global crisis.
Boulder Weekly |
Dana Logan |
05-27-2008 |
Animal Issues
Van Morrison Once Again Ventures Into the Slipstreamnew

What has eluded Morrison in recent years -- and what the famously press-skeptical artist has certainly done nothing to court -- is a galvanizing, buzz-worthy, late-career "comeback" on the order of Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan or Neil Diamond.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
05-27-2008 |
Reviews
Cannes Comebacks: Our Midfestival Reportnew
Call Mike Tyson, Jerzy Skolimowski and Terence Davies the comeback kids.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
05-27-2008 |
Movies
'The Children of Huang Shi': Epic Borenew
Spottiswoode is hardly alone in distilling a distant country's pain into the story of one white Westerner, armed with a similarly pale romantic interest and wry native sidekick, making a difference while world history rages around him.
L.A. Weekly |
Ella Taylor |
05-27-2008 |
Reviews
Protesters Decry UVM's Use of Live Pigs in Surgeons' Training Programnew
Advanced Trauma Operative Management offers practicing surgeonsa quick yet intense refresher in basic trauma-surgery techniques. But animal-rights advocates, as well as medical students and faculty around the country, believe live-animal training sessions have no place on college campuses.
Seven Days |
Mike Ives |
05-27-2008 |
Animal Issues
Uwe Boll Goes 'Postal'new
Notorious German director spars with his critics, makes an intentional comedy.
L.A. Weekly |
Luke Y. Thompson |
05-27-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Even the Mannequins Have Boob Jobsnew
Blame the 500 percent increase in implant surgery on slinky mannequins with big breasts.
NOW Magazine |
Tanya Grout |
05-27-2008 |
Commentary
Parenting Off the Grid and Off the Reservation in 'Surfwise'new

Halfway through Surfwise, a mesmerizingly ambivalent documentary about an itinerant family of Jewish surfer-dude health nuts, we meet the 84-year-old patriarch, "Doc" Paskowitz showing director Doug Pray a blown-up photo of a Nazi preparing to shoot a Jewish mother and child at close range.
L.A. Weekly |
Ella Taylor |
05-27-2008 |
Reviews
No Chivalry for Hillarynew
Clinton dumps feminism for suburban version of old hillbilly race-baiting.
NOW Magazine |
George Elliott Clarke |
05-27-2008 |
Commentary
Paranoid Transit Agency Tries to Censor Bloggersnew
Southern California commuter-rail line Metrolink spends public money threatening critical websites.
L.A. Weekly |
Max Taves |
05-27-2008 |
Tech
Indiana Ford ... and the Kingdom of Lucas and Spielbergnew
A proudly analog artifact exhumed and dusted off for our digital age, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is no less of a search for lost time on the part of its primary creators, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, but likely for much of the audience too.
L.A. Weekly |
Scott Foundas |
05-27-2008 |
Reviews