May 2004 Archives
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Personalities
Letters from Edinburgh: A Day at the Races
In the eighth installment of her letters from Scotland, our writer blissfully listens to a talking head, then turns around and runs for her life.
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Birnbaum v.
Ben Jones
Some nights you want a period romance, some nights a claustrophobic babble-drama, and some nights you just want a ripping adventure story that will keep you awake. A conversation with novelist Ben Jones about his new book of Arctic exploration.
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People
Martha Nussbaum
Philosopher Martha Nussbaum on who she reads for solace, the civic attitudes of undergraduates, taking a red pen to Heidegger, and exactly which texts she’d put on the president’s nightstand.
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Personalities
Letters From Russia: Ordeals in Vyborg
A town boasting roots in the middle ages, basements drowning in feces, and enough crime to scare away Finns who refuse to travel with guards—what more could a tourist want? Veronica Khokhlova leaves her home in St. Petersburg for the enticing Vyborg.
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Listening
The Charlatans, Up at the Lake
The lead singer of the U.K.-based Charlatans, Tim Burgess, has lived in L.A. since 1998. The band’s two most recent albums have met a lukewarm reception by...
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Personalities
Take the Downtown Train
If more men know what’s under the hood of a car than the hood of a clitoris, surely a revolution is needed. Enthusiast Paul Ford interviews Ian Kerner, sex therapist and author of She Comes First: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Pleasuring a Woman.
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Behind the Scenes
Untitled Fall Project
What to do when you and your sister are worth billions, on the brink of adulthood, and then your brand new movie flops? Go to college? Our Los Angeles reporter goes undercover to discover the starlets’ new plans.
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Letters From the Editor
The Deli After Work
‘Listen, I gave you a twenty!’ The clerk takes a step backwards. ‘No, you didn’t. You gave me a ten. This is it right here.’ ‘No, you switched it...
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The Non-Expert
Online Loving & Andy Kaufman
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we show how to turn online friendship into internet love, and expose the truth behind Andy Kaufman’s return.
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Stories
Sweeping the Dirt Floor: Ego Trip
There are many adventures to be found off the beaten path, and some may involve minstrels. Former Peace Corps volunteer and sometime hero Matthew Baldwin recalls a day-long hike in Bolivia.
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Don't Be Rude
When Guests Outstay Their Welcome
If your guests are walking all over you, it may be that you look suspiciously like a doormat.
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Reader Letters
Super-Sized Conservative Media
The other day I snapped. I had received a forwarded email that began: ‘Facts About Social Security. Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, …’ I should have hit the ‘delete’ button right then....
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Letters From the Editor
Contest Winner
The winner of last week’s Marshall Sokoloff/Jewelboxing ‘Salt’ contest is Bill Beardslee of Washington, D.C. Thanks again to our sponsors at Jewelboxing and Marshall Sokoloff for making...
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Opinions
2004 Editors’ Awards for Online Excellence
The web is an awfully tangled place, but there are jewels in the strands. Presenting The Morning News 2004 Editors’ Awards for Online Excellence, where advanced technology, top-notch prose, and pictures of cats are equally admired.
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Gary Benchley, Rock Star
The Coming of Indie Prog
Aspiring rock star Gary Benchley learns it’s not easy to date older women, considers giving up rock for branding, and, in a dark hour, composes the first rock tribute to Abu Ghraib.
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The Non-Expert
Assorted Randomness
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we explain why it’s not a good idea to name your baby after a month, what the opposite of brown is, and exactly who that is wandering the bike path.
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Stories
A Course Guide to Literary Readings
These days, literary readings aren’t as boring as they should be. But what for the budding author or poet, still in school, who doesn’t know how to smash a guitar or bake a cobbler onstage?
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Stories
A Love Affair With Maps
Maps represent our locations, they can serve as a reminder of where we’ve been, and they sometimes show us the best route to the mall. Our writer charts a personal history across the changing lines of his home state.
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Listening
Morrissey, You are the Quarry
Morrissey has never seemed more relevant. The glory days of the Smiths are long, long gone, in fact are a preferred distant memory for the Moz himself, given recent court...
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Opinions
Reading With the Enemy
Looking for a challenge and a little affirmation, our writer tests his die-hard liberal beliefs and goes on an all-conservative-media diet for one month. Life on the Right side of the dial doesn’t turn out the way he expected.
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Gallery
Salt
More colorful brilliance from the hulls of Toronto’s salt-encrusted sugar fleet. A photo gallery from Marshall Sokoloff, and a contest sponsored by Jewelboxing that could win you a framed large-format print from the series.
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The Non-Expert
English
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we illustrate, exhibit, and display how proper editing makes English all that more the understandable.
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Personalities
One Ring Zero
Not many people can play the claviola, and fewer still can use it to accompany lyrics by Neil Gaiman or Margaret Atwood. Pitchaya Sudbanthad talks to Michael Hearst and Joshua Camp of One Ring Zero, band of a thousand authors.
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Opinions
Barking at the Gate
The White House Correspondents Association dinner is DC’s biggest night—politicos mix with editors mix with celebrities, all very realalcoholik. It’s also among the lowest points of journalism.
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Gallery
Sky Mall Pop Quiz
Thank goodness for Sky Mall—that catalogue of oddball products supplied as entertainment for the passengers of most commercial airlines. But does anyone actually shop from it, or even know what its items are meant for? Danny Gregory and The Staff put together a test for its odder merchandise.
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Birnbaum v.
Rachel Cohen
Ulysses S. Grant and Elizabeth Bishop never met, but we can imagine how the conversation might have gone. A conversation with author Rachel Cohen about her book of road trips and crossed paths, including many of America’s best writers.