In his ninth and latest novel, Drop City, T.C. Boyle tells the story of a 1970 Sonoma commune and its denizens–loners and misfits with names like Star, Pan, and Merry who milk goats, share one another’s beds and dope, and sell “authentic hippie in full hippie regalia” photos to tourists for 25 cents a pop. […]
Tag: Vol. 32 No. 24
Issue of Mar. 13 – 19, 2003
Posted inNews & Politics
Our Corporate Masters
Kitry Krause’s article on Scott Portman, “War: What It’s Good For” [March 7], starts right off with the claim that “we seem to have forgotten…Saddam Hussein is torturing and killing his own people.” Not only is this statement absurd (Bush never misses an opportunity to mention Saddam’s cruelty), but it’s incredibly insulting to the millions […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Spider
David Cronenberg isn’t credited often enough for his literacy, which anchors him as a filmmaker much as Method acting can anchor some performers: he seems to immerse himself so deeply in the warped visions of certain writers that he re-creates their work whereas most literary filmmakers would simply imitate it. This tour de force, which […]
Posted inNews & Politics
News of the Weird
Lead Stories In January the Associated Press reported on the new edition of the Encyclopedia of American Religion, compiled by researcher J. Gordon Melton of the University of California, Santa Barbara; the book lists 2,630 different sects divided into 26 “families,” including 116 Catholic denominations, “hundreds” of Pentecostal flocks, and 22 groups that believe in […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Breath, Boom
Breath, Boom, Pegasus Players. Ghetto stereotypes mandate that men hit and women get hit–but the teenage girls of Kia Corthron’s play, set in the South Bronx, reject the example of their abused mothers. Led by Prix, members of a girl gang experience the “empowerment” provided by the gang ethos, which gives them a false sense […]
Posted inNews & Politics
A Live One
Dear Reader and Andy, Great article on John Kuczaj and Dave Kingman [“The Fan,” March 7]. However, one possible correction. I’m pretty sure the rat was alive (or else the animal rights groups would have been out in full force). You could ask Susan Fornoff, as she was the reporter at the time. I lived […]
Posted inNews & Politics
City File
Hospital Bill Literacy 101. “A frequent error of hospitals occurs with respect to intravenous solutions that are administered on the day of admission,” according to the Hospital Accountability Project of the Service Employees International Union (“Bitter Bills to Swallow: A consumer guide to the 20 most common ways hospitals overcharge patients”). “The hospital computer will […]
Posted inArts & Culture
David Sanchez
Widely hailed in the late 90s as the harbinger of a new north-south fusion in American music, the 34-year-old saxophonist David Sanchez has refused to take the easy path. On his 1998 album, Obsesion (Columbia), he assembled love songs not just from his native Puerto Rico but from throughout Latin America, and played them atop […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Don Byron
Clarinetist Don Byron has earned a reputation as a stubborn individualist by repeatedly confounding the expectations of his audience. Although he’s ostensibly a jazz musician, over the past decade and a half his recordings have investigated klezmer, funk, hip-hop, Latin music, and opera; recently, as artist in residence at New York’s Symphony Space, he’s interpreted […]
Posted inArts & Culture
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Couer
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Couer, Village Players Theatre. Like most Tennessee Williams plays, this one has literal and figurative heartache at its center. (“Creve coeur” is both French for a broken heart and the name of a popular amusement park just outside Saint Louis during the Depression.) But here Williams is less interested in […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Datebook
MARCH 14 FRIDAY Why did African-Americans overwhelmingly support Clarence Thomas? The reasons, say scholars Johnetta Betsch Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, have their roots in slavery and the need for black men to align themselves with white men to achieve parity–at the expense of black women. In their new book, Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s […]
Posted inColumns & Opinion
Savage Love
I am a straight male who just got back from Carnaval in Rio. I went with a few friends from work. We had a blast. Actually it may have been too much fun. One night I drank too much and ended up getting into a conversation with one of the most beautiful girls I had […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Equal Opportunity/Good News Is No News/Strangers Bearing Gifts
Charles Middleton hit the glass ceiling in Boulder, but Roosevelt University found his sexual orientation irrelevant to the question of how good a president he’d make.
Posted inNews & Politics
Compassion to Go
“Excuse me, sir, but could you spare some change?” My face was buried in my coat to shield it from the wind, but I looked up. It was 4 AM and I was coming off the late shift, ground down and famished, looking for something to eat before bed. My search had led to an […]
Posted inNews & Politics
The Straight Dope
OK, so I’m trying to lose some weight. My current plan, eat less and exercise more, is working pretty well, but I want to take it up a notch. So I’m wondering: How many calories are in a pint of blood? How often can you donate without making yourself ill? This could be a great […]