January 2008 Archives
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Wendy Whitesell
Benjamin Marra
Hometown: Nyack, N.Y. Occupation: Artist How would you describe your look? Cool as Ice After Labor Day, or Hessian Headbanger (But You Probably Wouldn’t Know It). Your Indie...
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Consoles I Have Known
The Most Competitive Man Alive
Recounting lessons from a first Nintendo, particularly as taught by the highs and lows of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.
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Listening
New Histories for New Bands
Anyone can sit you down and tell you what they know about popular, highly influential musicians. It’s easy, just sitting there, telling. Which is what makes our occasional forays...
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Spoofs & Satire
A President for Hill View Neighborhood Watch Like My Father
We need a president who welcomes responsibility, who can connect with people of all walks of life, and who will work to make our neighborhood great again.
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The Artist at Home
William Weaver at Annandale-on-Hudson
After a life spent telling stories in two different tongues, the American translator of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino is struggling with his own.
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Reading
Book Digest: January 28, 2008
Marshall McCluhan said: “When the globe becomes a single electronic web with all its languages and culture recorded on a single tribal drum, the fixed point of view of print...
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Gallery
Around the World
When your cousin can upload 400 pictures from her Tahitian vacation but not find time to whittle them down, do you care too much about her journey?
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Watching
Video Digest: January 25, 2008
Fellow citizens, January’s staggering to an end, and you know what that means: it’s time for the State of the Union! This year our 43rd president will deliver...
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The Non-Expert
The Coast Is Sheer
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we explain how to build a roller coaster in terms a young engineering student may not expect.
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Of Recent Note
Exercise Gear
How many fitness-inspired New Year’s resolutions does it take to beat down the average individual? How many recommended items of exercise paraphernalia from the writers does it take to rebuild one’s spirit? The answer is: never enough.
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Pitchaya Sudbanthad
James Trimarco
Name: James Trimarco Hometown: St. Petersburg, Fla. Occupation: I write stories and articles. I produce dance music for goth/industrial clubs. I temp when the money’s tight. Educational background:...
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Listening
Mainstreamers Become Soundtrackers
As much as the dead silent stretches generate an unnerving sense of foreboding tension in Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film There Will Be Blood (which, if you haven’t...
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New York, New York
Known for Her Crumb Cake
Staten Islanders are an insular crowd; but once the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge connected them to the rest of New York, everything changed. Well, maybe not everything.
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Personal Essays
The Bear
Being a new father of two girls takes love, patience, and the wisdom not to attack other children in their defense.
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Gallery
Patients
Photographer Nicholas Nixon’s portraits of the seriously or terminally ill are intimate, riveting, at times subtly shocking for their softness.
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Reading
Book Digest: January 21, 2008
The presidential campaign is not anywhere close to full throttle and already it appears to be another dreary, droning TV miniseries, characterized by bad writing and even worse acting—it’...
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Watching
Video Digest: January 18, 2008
Lately, it’s become serious punishment to follow presidential politics in the U.S. Why? Misogyny. Hillary Clinton’s big, bold run for president, and her nerve to be successful...
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The Non-Expert
The Vote Not Shaken
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we help a reader choose between political candidates by applying modern poetry to the process.
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Deidre Schoo
Astoria: Andrea Reese
Name: Andrea Reese Hometown: Washington, D.C. Occupation: Writer/Actress/Artist/Singer/Career Counselor How did you break into acting? Both of my grandmothers were in the arts, so I...
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Personal Essays
Please Spool to End of Tape Before Playing Other Side
For music listeners of every era, our audio formats define us—until we grow up and upgrade. Remembering the sweet squeak of cassettes.
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Listening
Holes in the Year-End Best-of Lists
While everybody else was fighting for attention to get their year-end lists in by the 31st, I was lying in wait, culling the extremes, the ins and outs, to strain...
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Birnbaum v.
Arthur Phillips
Three novels under his belt, Arthur Phillips sits down for a chat with our man in Boston about his commitment to fiction writing and, a challenge on quite another level, finding the discipline to focus on one piece at a time.
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Gallery
Psychics
Not many people claim to speak to the dead these days. Spiritualists do, though, and are alive and well in contemporary America, working and living in New York and Florida, occasionally running errands on the other side.
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Reading
Book Digest: January 14, 2008
Anthony Burgess once described his ideal reader as “a lapsed Catholic and a failed musician, short-sighted, color blind, auditorially biased, who has read the books that I have read. He...
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Watching
Video Digest: January 11, 2008
Only 11 days into it and I’m already tired of the presidential hopefuls. Maybe it felt different living in Iowa or New Hampshire, being wooed by each candidate personally, correcting...
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The Non-Expert
You Say You Want a Resolution
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we conjure a New Year’s vow for a quitter who needs something new to quit.
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Lisa Whiteman
Manhattan: Kurt Braunohler
Name: Kurt Braunohler Time of birth: 7:00 (one hour before prime time!) Occupation, both real and desired-in-another-lifetime: Comedian. Carpenter. What’s with the choco ‘stache? It’s not chocolate. Who is...
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Listening
The January 2008 Leak Report
Happy New Year, everyone! Wasn’t 2007 nuts? Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the business at hand: 2008 is going to be a banner year for...
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Consoles I Have Known
A Very Weird and Blocky Future
How many video games does it take to make a man? An epic new series traces a man’s life in gaming systems. Part one: paddles to jump-start your heart, and the end-all, be-all red fire button.
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The Guilfoile-Warner Papers
The Huckaboom and the Obamawagon
In the weeks before the 2004 election, Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner opped and edded their way through the debates, issues, and differences in hair. With just 299 days left in the 2008 race, they sharpen their quills.
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Reading
Book Digest: January 7, 2008
This new political moment, featuring candidates who are not angry, mean-spirited hacks spewing fear and loathing (Although Mitt Romney’s “Marching Forward into the Future” speech is its own brand...
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Gallery
Come Hell
Alyssa Monks’s paintings have an unsettling power after first glance. Perhaps it’s the water—you’ve been in a pool before, the look of skin’s familiar, and then you stare a little longer and it no longer makes sense.