September 2007 Archives
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Watching
Video Digest: September 28, 2007
Like revenge fantasies, anti-drug videos are a creative bonanza for those visionaries who know how to exploit both sides of an issue; righteous indignation at the social ills while simultaneously...
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The Non-Expert
Forgive the Drummer Some
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we solve the greatest mystery known to rock-and-rollers of every generation: how to find a decent drummer.
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In Hindsight
Back to School
This September students headed back to class to absorb knowledge and life skills. Some even found time to work STDs and partners-in-crime into their curricula.
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Listening
Mp3 Bio: the Traveling Wilburys
To some, I’m sure I sound like a raving madman when I say there was ever such a thing as New Coke or Cassingles. Thanks to the internet I...
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Profiles
One Day on the Internet
In a world that revolves around email addresses and instant messages, much human interaction comes in bits and bytes. We spent a day keeping track of our keystrokes around the globe.
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Birnbaum v.
Susanna Moore
It’s humans’ flaws that make the world go round, and novelist Susanna Moore examines them under intense magnification. She chats with our man in Boston about crime and punishment.
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Reading
Book Digest: September 24, 2007
From David Plante’s new novel, ABC: It seemed to Gerard that the trance he was in raised him above himself, so that he saw himself as if from a...
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The Novice
How to Blow Glass
Those who can’t do, learn. In this installment of our series in which the clueless apprentice with the experts, we visit a glass-blowing studio in Brooklyn.
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Watching
Video Digest: September 21, 2007
Coming home from work the other day, I saw a couple on a bicycle, speeding down 24th Street. Not the steepest of hills, but 24th heading out of Noe Valley...
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Albums of the Year
The Top 10 Albums of 1986
Emptying out a storage space in Houston means judging sentimental value against what fits in the car.
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Listening
Hunting the New Agitprop
We had just come back from a trip to Tower Records and sat down to play a couple tracks from what we had bought, with plans to skip around and...
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Of Recent Note
Fall Fashion
You’ve heard from Marc Jacobs, Proenza Schouler, and Chloe Sevigny on what to wear this season. Now it’s our turn. The monthly round-up from the writers on what appeals, this time from their closets.
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Reading
Book Digest: September 17, 2007
Last week I made mention of the appearance of George Saunders on the Late Show With David Letterman and cited an account of that unlikely happenstance by one of Saunders...
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Gallery
Cinemascapes
Aaron Hobson’s pictures are very immediate—they’re familiar for anyone who’s spent time picking around America’s rust belt, but you linger for a while and notice the care with details and composition.
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Watching
Video Digest: September 14, 2007
No U.S. Open coverage was complete without pointing fans toward YouTube, where up-and-coming Federer replacement Novak Djokovic was caught impersonating his peers in the locker room. With good reason:...
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The Non-Expert
Happily Heifer After
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we point out the differences between non-organic and organic cows—in words only an organic cow would comprehend.
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Op-Ed
A New Social Construct
Modernism may be dead, but the world desperately needs radically new ideas about living, working, and governing in the 21st-century city.
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Listening
Catching Up With T-Pain
Almost exclusively, I listen to the song “Bartender” by T-Pain. When I moved back to Texas, my grandfather gave me his old car. It’s just turned 10 and in the...
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Astroland's Last Summer
The Long Goodbye
For 45 years, the weekend after Labor Day has closed out the season for Astroland Park. This year, with the fate of Coney Island in the balance, the weekend passed without resolution.
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Going Back to Kali
Henna, and Coca-Cola
The wedding arrives, and our author finds his role is more than just that of guest. But playing the pious Hindu “brother” doesn’t come easy. The sixth in a series of travel essays.
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Reading
Book Digest: September 10, 2007
Among other things I can’t explain is the aptness of the well-worn line from A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst...
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Gallery
Architecture of Authority
To Richard Ross, the DMV is more than an annoyance; it’s an example of authority at work in our daily lives.
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The Non-Expert
One-Hit Wonders
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we help a reader who wants to know: What’s a superhero worth these days, anyway?
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Watching
Video Digest: September 7, 2007
My wife loves to dance and so do I, but Paris, where we live right now, isn’t much of a dancing town, especially if you like R&B. Paris...
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Listening
The Creole You’ve Been Waiting For
What I try to tell all of the black nationalists, white identity groups, and Polynesian isolationists I meet—we have a weekly potluck—is that cultural integrity is a musical...
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Pushing Petals
I’m Sick Y’all
After Laurie Lindeen was diagnosed with MS, she started a rock band and christened it Zuzu’s Petals. The same reminder that brought George Bailey back to his flawed life brought her back to hers. For both of them, it was proof that life is wonderful.
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Gallery
Peepers
Kohei Yoshiyuki’s 1970s photos capture peeping Toms raptly eyeing their prey in Tokyo parks.