March 2008 Archives
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Reading
Book Digest: March 31, 2008
From the pen of Nobel Laureate John Steinbeck: A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be...
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Watching
Video Digest: March 28, 2008
My goodness, but we’ve had some interesting political scandals this year. Juicy ones, too, with extramarital sex and misuse of public funds. Now, when I think about sex scandals,...
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Op-Ed
March Sadness
Your NCAA brackets have fallen apart; you are not alone. Devised with lessons learned from the tournament thus far, a set of rules to ensure a perfect prediction from here on out.
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Listening
Mp3 Bio: Steve Winwood
Born in Birmingham, U.K., in 1948, Steve Winwood started playing guitar in his father’s band at just eight years old. Growing up in Birmingham’s rhythm and blues scene,...
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Spoofs & Satire
A World Without Me
Assume all human life within an apartment suddenly and inexplicably vanishes, said human life consisting entirely of me. What happens next?
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Conversation Piece
5:20 to Jaipur
What does it say about you if one of the most notable themes of your travel tales is the way you kept breaking out into hysterical laughter?
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Wendy Whitesell
Cynthia “Heesun” Lee
Hometown: Seoul, Korea Currently residing in: Staten Island, N.Y. Occupation: I currently work at a shipping company, but I’m planning on doing music fulltime soon. When did you...
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Reader Letters
Sincerely Yours, Offended in Paris
Dear Editors, As an American currently living in Paris with my family, I was discouraged to read the broad, stereotypical claims made by Rosecrans Baldwin in “Paris I Love You...
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Reading
Book Digest: March 24, 2008
It is not yet clear to me whether Nicholson Baker’s amazing and brave new book, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, will have...
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Reader Letters
Defending a Decision
Dear Morning News Readers Who Think it Was Unfair That I Judged Díaz vs. Lippman Because I Already Have Read and Liked Díaz, Are you batshit crazy? I...
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Reader Letters
In Appreciation
Dear Mr. Warner, I just wanted to thank you for your candid and insightful commentary on the second-round Tournament of Books matchup between Denis Johnson’s Tree of Smoke and...
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Of Recent Note
The Last Great Thing You Downloaded
From movies to music to graphic novels and Spanish lessons, here are some of our recent digital world discoveries, as downloaded by our writers and readers.
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Watching
Video Digest: March 21, 2008
CNN doesn’t like to give up its news crawler—you can’t escape it by watching videos on its web site. That’s how I learned in “a recent...
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Listening
Keep It or Delete It
Ah, spring. The season for cleaning is here again, and much like Kenneth Grahame’s Mole, I find myself taking inventory of everything down in my dusty hole in the...
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Announcements
Intern sought for Summer 2008
We are now accepting applications for our Summer 2008 intern position. Applicants should email us a short description of why they want to intern at TMN, their complete contact information, and...
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Announcements
What’s the last great thing you downloaded?
We're trying a new thing here. We'd like you to tell us your most recent, favorite download--a song, a movie, a piece of software, anything at all that you downloaded...
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Diversions
And Great Lyrics Quiz Rock Roll The
You may rock the karaoke, you may even have impressed the judges on American Idol, but you don’t know lyrics until you’ve seen them in alphabetical order.
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Reading
Book Digest: March 17, 2008
Ex-Chicagoan, Syracuse University mentor, dog lover, and spirited writer George Saunders responds to our query regarding the state of his reading: I am just emerging from our [MFA] admissions reading...
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America, America, Burning Bright
We Not Cruel
Delegates, primaries, ads, and speeches, mean the campaign season is full of chaos and noise. Putting things in order—in iambic tetrameter, that is.
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Watching
Video Digest: March 14, 2008
Office culture doesn’t differ much country to country. People send each other videos, and we watch those videos when we think no one’s looking. In France, the videos...
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Reader Letters
Letter: From Russia
Dear Morning News editors, I quite happily read Elizabeth Kiem’s article on the elections in Russia last week. As I’ve been living in Russia this year, through both...
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Listening
South by Southwests of Yore
South by Southwest, that bastion of independent music, Web 2.0 crowdsourcing folksonomy panels, and drunken mid-level industry types, hasn’t always been such an established tradition. It took a good 20 years...
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Reviews
Six-Word Reviews of 763 SXSW Mp3s
The South by Southwest music festival begins in Austin, Texas, today. Of the hundreds of acts hoping to break big, 763 have offered an mp3 of their still-unknown sound. We listen to them all, all the way through.
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The Artist at Home
Alla Bayanova on the Arbat
Wandering along the Arbat in Moscow, Elizabeth Kiem finds the residence of a Russian singer who spent a year in a concentration camp during World War II, and who claims never to have known her true home.
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Reading
Book Digest: March 10, 2008
As has been my practice these last few weeks I have asked a writer I know—in this instance George Pelecanos—for some words about his reading: The best novel...
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Watching
Video Digest: March 7, 2008
Since today marks the first round of the 2008 Tournament of Books, we figured we’d have a literary discussion about movies. All us hardcore readers know the book is always...
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Profiles
Deified and Demagogued
Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away this week. A gaming enthusiast remembers how the discovery of a game opened a new world of imagination and fun.
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Blaise Kearsley
Michael Showalter
Hometown: Princeton, NJ. The crew from The State is getting back together for a feature-length movie. What can we expect? Partial nudity, comedy bears, impersonations of dead presidents, and reenactments...
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Personal Essays
The Year of the Grey Rabbit
In 1979, as the U.S. became embroiled in the events that would develop into the current political climate, one man set out in search of America. Today, he remembers who he—and the country—were.
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Listening
The March 2008 Leak Report
Cursing the gods of New York City weather—those that taunt us with a day or two of warm sun and clear blue sky between sloughs of ice and wind—...
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Op-Ed
In Other Election News
Some claim Russia’s Medvedev is a False Dmitry; others—especially the new prime minister—insist he’s the real deal. A look at Russia’s post-election party-protests.
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Consoles I Have Known
Three Thousand Head-Butts
Strong men also play video games. The story of how a young depressed man became a bear, dragon, tiger, and man-wolf.
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Reading
Book Digest: March 3, 2008
Regular readers of this space will notice the continuation of my recent genius brainstorm of asking writers of my acquaintance to offer a tidbit about their current reading. Nicholson Baker—...
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Gallery
Pull Back the Shade
Photographer Muzi Quawson spent four years documenting the life of Amanda Jo Williams, a young mother and musician living in Woodstock, NY.