AltWeeklies Wire
'The Immigrant's Contract' Is as Gripping a Read as a Great Novelnew
A book-length poem about manual work -- and rather dryly titled -- is an unlikely page-turner, but Kinsey pulls it off by amassing arresting details.
Seven Days |
Amy Lilly |
04-28-2008 |
Poetry
'Jellyfish''s Etgar Keret: The Wizard of Idnew
Writer/director shoots from the hip about his low-budget movie and his high-budget life.
L.A. Weekly |
Ella Taylor |
04-28-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Keep On (Taco) Truckingnew
I love entry-level capitalism at its most chaotic, where the barriers to doing business are on the wispy side of minimal, where two dozen oddball eating places can be launched for less money than it would take to open a single outlet of Burger King.
L.A. Weekly |
Jonathan Gold |
04-28-2008 |
Food+Drink
Hell in a Cell: Inside Tamms Supermax Prisonnew
The prison near the southern tip of Illinois was built to punish disruptive inmates with temporary solitary confinement. Yet Reginald Berry spent the better part of eight years there -- and he was luckier than many.
Chicago Reader |
Jeffrey Felshman |
04-28-2008 |
Crime & Justice
A Wannabee Butcher Tries Out Her Chopsnew
Some middle-aged dudes might fantasize about rock-star camp. Others will pay a mint to don big-league pinstripes and run around the field. Me, I just wanted to dismember an animal.
Seven Days |
Alice Levitt |
04-28-2008 |
Food+Drink
'Nerdcore Rising' Has Set the Geekiest Corners of the Internet Abuzznew
Director Negin Farsad talks about why she decided to make a documentary about the hip-hop sub-genre.
Seven Days |
Dan Bolles |
04-28-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
What Mary Roach Doesn't Want to Talk About in 'Bonk'new
Sadism recognizes taboo and guilt and shame; the transgression is the point. But for science, and for Roach, taboo is simply superstition, a roadblock the repressed throw up between sex and pleasure, and between research and its funding.
Chicago Reader |
Noah Berlatsky |
04-28-2008 |
Nonfiction
A Pasadena Family Turns its Backyard into an Urban Homesteadnew
Melting ice caps, unchecked global oil consumption, mind-boggling volumes of trash accumulating in landfills -- the problems facing our planet are so big, it's tempting to tune them out. But when you talk to the Dervaes family, the founders of a home-based sustainable living resource center in Pasadena called Path to Freedom, it's the smallness of things you walk away thinking about.
Pasadena Weekly |
April Caires |
04-28-2008 |
Environment
Richard Heinberg Discusses a Post-Carbon Futurenew
Chances are, when you think about gasoline, it crosses your mind in an abstract way -- as if where it comes from and how much of it exists is someone else's problem. Thanks to peak oil expert Richard Heinberg, Americans' naive attitude toward fossil fuels may be changing.
Seven Days |
Mike Ives |
04-28-2008 |
Author Profiles & Interviews
The Music Industry's Format Warsnew
CD sales are down, vinyl and download sales are up, and record labels are doing the math.
Chicago Reader |
Miles Raymer |
04-28-2008 |
Music
Bubbly Girlnew
Colbie Caillat seems more like your sister than a singing sensation. The sunny, down-to-earth demeanor reflected in her music shines through the phone line across the Atlantic.
For Caillat, she says hasn’t really experienced the “celebrity” aspect of musicianship, and fame is still relatively new to her.
“I’m not used to it, for the most part.” And, like any true artist, she is dedicated to her craft and doesn’t concern herself with the spotlight. “I’m always touring.”
Metro Spirit |
Alice Wynn |
04-27-2008 |
Profiles & Interviews
Tags: digital, acoustic, MySpace, singer-songwriter, bubbly girl, chanteuse, CoCo, Colbie Caillat, Fleetwood Mac, hit, kan caillat, rumors
Murder by Deathnew
By the light of the moon…I’m comin’ home.
Howlin’ all the way…I’m comin’ home. - So begins Red of Tooth and Claw, the latest neo-noir/Peckinpah-soaked/ baroque spaghetti western mini-epic from Indiana’s Murder by Death. Though I feel compelled to admit that I swiped this thing from my editor’s desk primarily due to my all-too-obvious affection for the 1976 murder mystery farce (starring Peter Sellers and Maggie Smith, among others) of the same name, I was nearly as enthused regarding the subtle buzz that the group has been generating since early in the decade as a surprisingly literary alt-country goth outfit. Seriously… think REALLY-early-Bad Seeds Nick Cave in a head-hanging contest with the entirety of the Cure in a frontier-boom saloon. And Tom Waits slumps in the corner, drunkenly lighting a cigar with his own kerosene-soaked pinkie.
Metro Spirit |
Jason Sumerau |
04-27-2008 |
Reviews
Backstage Passnew
With almost three decades of experience producing the annual spectacle, Ken Ehrlich provides a collection of stories sure to please any avid viewer of award shows in his book “At the Grammys: Behind the Scenes at Music’s Biggest Night.”
Metro Spirit |
Jason Sumerau |
04-27-2008 |
Nonfiction
Truly a Pleasurenew
From the first page of “Earthly Pleasures,” the new novel from Karen Neches, readers will find the opportunity to laugh, cry, and go on an all out ride through a wonderful narrative.
A former columnist for the Augusta Chronicle, a co-author of one novel, and the sole voice of the Bottom Dollar Girl series, Karen Neches is a voice readers with an ear for intricate plots have to hear. Otherwise known as Karin Gillespie, this founder of the virtual tour The Girlfriend Circuit who travels the Southeast with the Dixie Divas provides an animated unconventional love story in her latest composition.
Metro Spirit |
Jason Sumerau |
04-27-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: fiction, Education, Life, The Beatles, God, Earthly Pleasures, fun, love, chick lit, chick-lit, angel, heaven, Karen Gillespie, Karen Neches, life lessons, Fiction Reviews
Finding Meaning in the Oldest Storynew
It’s a terrible struggle, becoming human, but this is exactly what Actors Scene Unseen attempts in a rejuvenation of one of the world’s oldest stories in “Gilgamesh: A Verse Play.”
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa and former Executive Director of Inverse Theater Chad Garcia reinvent the ageless epic in an audio experience. The work of the two reminds contemporary listeners of the pains necessary in the search for meaning between man and the supernatural.
Metro Spirit |
Jason Sumerau |
04-27-2008 |
Fiction
Tags: fiction, Poetry, Drama, Pulitzer Prize, theater, book, epic, stage, Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh: A Verse Play, meter, play, rhyme, Theatre, Yusef Komunyakaa, Fiction Reviews
