March 2009 Archives
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Listening
Thinking This Is Fun
Winning is hard, really for two main reasons: first, you have to win. The best winners make this look easy, but it never is. The second reason concerns what happens...
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Reading
Waltz With Bashir
Like Art Spiegelman, I have an aversion to the rubric “graphic novel.” Golden Globe-winning Israeli film Waltz With Bashir was first an animated film and now also exists as a 12...
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Personal Essays
Pink Suede Shoes
Sometimes it takes the right pair of shoes to kick you over the edge into adulthood. For one writer, it’s other people’s shoes that do the kicking.
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Letters From Mumbai
The Mumbai Limited
Middle-class life in India requires two wheels. Our local correspondent adapts to rage on the road and learns about purchasing underwear while commuting.
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Watching
Chewing Up the Small Screen
In the vast wasteland known as television, the gap between the Olympian heights of shows such as The Wire and the subterranean depths of reality TV and that ode to...
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Spoofs & Satire
The Blame Game
Flipping through A-Rod’s catalog of the perps who caused him to take steroids.
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Listening
Buke and Gass
It's always a special thrill to see a band that forces itself to do more with less. Not only do they end up finding all sorts of ingenious backroad ways...
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Spoofs & Satire
Fallen Heroes
Every day, on street corners and in shopping centers across the nation, hungry mouths get their fill of authentic, toasted Italian cuisine. A one-act play.
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Reading
Through Black Spruce
As I was reading and immensely enjoying Through Black Spruce (Viking), Canadian author Joseph Boyden’s newest opus, I came to the realization that I never read something by a...
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Man V. Other Man
You Are Not Cool
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is known for writing colorful decisions, full of “gobbledegook” and even John Lennon quotes. But whatever his legal philosophy, one thing he isn’t is cool.
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Profiles
One Spring Day
As winter wanes, everyone grows tired of the cold and damp, whether they live in San Francisco, Austin, or London. A day in the life of TMN’s editors and writers on the first day of spring.
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Reading
Musing on Muses
I view those books concerned with writers’ love lives and how that affected their work at large with at least detachment and perhaps even skepticism—though unquestionably I respect the...
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New York, New York
An Evening With the Twelve Colonies
On Tuesday, post-apocalyptic refugees from Battlestar Galactica—which airs its final episode tonight—spent an evening at the U.N. swapping war stories with rights activists. It was a convincing trailer, even for the uninitiated.
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Reading
Becoming Manny
The Manny Ramirez story seems to have a wider audience than just local baseball chatter, and may even go off track and venture into the quagmire known as human relations....
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Announcements
Tell Us Your Favorite Thing About the Recession
This month's Of Recent Note topic is: Your Favorite Thing About the Recession Maybe it's that you're suddenly thankful for your thankless job. Maybe it's that Restaurant Week turned into...
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Listening
One of the Beautiful
"Regarding our absence, sometimes one needs to disappear in order to regroup; situations change and human beings are swept here and there by the marvelous ebb and flow of culture."...
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Reviews
Six-Word Reviews of 1,302 SXSW Mp3s
In anticipation of the South by Southwest music festival, which begins today in Austin, Texas, more than a thousand acts—almost twice as many as last year—offered an mp3 to showcase their sound. We listened to them all.
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Personal Essays
Stereoblind
After a lifetime of visual miscues, I finally decided to do something about my optical condition. Now comes the hard part: seeing the world through both eyes.
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Reading
Oxford Atlas of the World
Assuming you have not been totally co-opted and reduced to an incidental node in the circuitry of the faceless conspiracy known as the WWW, it’s possible you may have...
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Reading
Ghosts of Chicago
Some years ago in a conversation with the then-ebullient Thisbe Nissen, a recent spawn of the famous (Iowa) Writers’ Workshop, I asked—as I am occasionally prone to do—if...
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The Non-Expert
Fear of Flying
Experts answer what they know. The Non-Expert answers anything. This week we help an airline passenger determine the best day and time to book a flight.
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Reading
Poster Art
Except for movie and music concert art of the late ’60s (JZ Lynch, R. Crumb, Skip Williamson), posters have not occupied as prominent a place in American culture as in...
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Spoofs & Satire
It Is My Wish
Some hope for peace, others for environmental protection—and that’s because TED Prize wishes aren’t often granted to neoconservatives.
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Listening
Dance Til You’re Dead
Under most circumstances, a tonal shift in a band's entire sound is a signal of desperation. Perhaps they are past their prime, perhaps they aren't selling out the same venues...
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Personal Essays
How to Survive a Crush
Two decades after high school days spent yearning to be a part of the “in” crowd, our writer confronts her former dream date, now a best-selling author, and her former self.
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New York, New York
Gandhi’s Return
Last week at a Manhattan auction house, five of Mahatma Gandhi’s personal items were on the block when second thoughts crept in. From the back offices, observing an auction in suspense.
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Listening
Xylopholks
Last week, amid a crush of evening commuters, I stood slackjawed on the L train platform and witnessed what I could only assume were two grown men, one in a...
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Spoofs & Satire
All the President’s Pens
It’s difficult to fix the economy when you can’t find a stapler. Reviewing some recently declassified White House audio tapes as President Obama works through his first 100 days.
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Listening
We Are All Made of Stars
You don't realize how far you've come, how insignificant you are, until you look up and remember--oh yeah! There are things called stars! Two hundred stars are born every second,...
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Reader Letters
An Issue With Language
Let me start off by saying that I love your site and that I regularly share it with others, whenever possible. I’m particularly fond of the Non-Expert, which is...
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Listening
Ram On
As anyone who's been to the movies recently, or listened to a radio, or watched another stale episode of supposedly edgy satire (SNL? Family Guy? Fill in the blank?) has...
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Letters From London
Attending the NME Awards With Pete Doherty and a Whole Bunch of Actual Musicians, Feeling Nostalgic
When you’re young and you love music, you can’t imagine losing touch with the new sound. And then it happens.
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Gallery
Loss of Home
David Diao’s paintings of Chinese characters, recreated floor plans, and an isolated, ominous tennis court illustrate not only where the artist has been, but who he’s become.