September 2009 Archives
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Spoofs & Satire
Adventure Capital
It’s risky business, this adventuring, and best not undertaken by those bereft of bravery or collateral.
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Interview
Tracey Thorn
Tracey Thorn is an English singer-songwriter with a career spanning nearly three decades. She is probably best known as being one half of the highly acclaimed duo Everything but the...
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Gallery
Genesis
From founding industrial-music heavyweights Throbbing Gristle to collaborating with performance artist Lady Jaye, in which the two underwent plastic surgery to merge their identities, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is about as cutting-edge as you get.
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Spoofs & Satire
Home Schooled
Home-schooling gets a bad rap from advocates of traditional education. Our writer defends his parents’ choice to create a high school at home, including a prom.
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Spoofs & Satire
Don’t Be a Statistic
While H1N1 dominates the headlines, other equally worrisome conditions get lost in the panic. Tips to survive spontaneous human combustion.
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Spoofs & Satire
The Fiery Furnaces Visit the Department of Motor Vehicles
The brother-sister duo’s narrative inclinations take over during a license renewal.
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Interview
Carl Deal & Tia Lessin
Carl Deal and Tia Lessin are the producers and directors of the Academy Award-nominated documentary Trouble the Water, which follows the lives of Ninth Ward residents Kimberly and Scott Roberts...
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New York, New York
Goodbye to All Them
The life of a poet in New York means recognizing the important appellations and knowing when to take the (grant) money and run.
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Letters From Berlin
So Very Weimar
Nearly 20 years after reunification, a trip into the German countryside finds that the past persists: murder and prostitutes and birthday parties, and plenty of wild boar.
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Current Reads
Gnashing the Scenery
There are some writers--for me, Rick Russo, Jim Harrison, Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos, Amy Bloom, to name a few--for whom the matter at hand is not whether but rather how...
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Current Reads
Monument
Looking at Rebecca Solnit's body of published work--Hope in the Dark, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Wanderlust: A History...
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Bookbag
Lincoln, Short and Tall
By now if you have any interest in American history or Abraham Lincoln, you are aware that 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, and naturally there is a gush...
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Bookbag
Unnatural
If there is a blacker mark of shame on the history of American governance (the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans notwithstanding), I am open to considering...
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Opinions
OK Genius
Apple’s iTunes software claims to be a Genius at making mixes. We beg to differ, knowing how mixes should be made, and propose a duel of “Fingertips.”
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Opinions
Queens of the Scatological Age
Next month, one book will be crowned America’s funniest. Reviewing this year’s candidates for the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and tiptoeing through the doo-doo.
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Announcements
What Is Your Most Beloved Children’s Book?
With the imminent release of the movie version of Where the Wild Things Are, we're caught up in a wave of nostalgia, and our thoughts turn to the bookshelves of...
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Personal Essays
Jack & Ginger
Moving back to your hometown offers opportunities to rekindle old friendships—and start new ones. An 80-proof love story.
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Gallery
The Young Women of Tehran
Contradictions abound in Iran’s struggle with modernity. The women in Saghar Daeeri’s paintings lurch from their frames to assert their self-expression, taking us into a world of bazaars and malls that existed long before rioters in the streets began Twittering.
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Profiles
DJ Premier: Hope to the Underground
The turntablist now known as DJ Premier got help at critical moments in his rise from a piano-playing childhood in Houston, and these days he’s looking to spread the love.
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Current Reads
Hall of Mirrors
There are probably a few handfuls of writers who fall into the unfortunate category of being designated writers' writers. I say unfortunate because it suggests an explanation for a lack...
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Current Reads
Resistance Fighter
I suppose if there were many American readers who were interested in the harrowing and haunting recollections of Haifa Zangana, an exiled Iraqi patriot and lifelong (since the '70s)...
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New York, New York
Still a Moron After All These Years
New York City schools operate in a ferocious caste system. What’s to be done when your school is viewed as subpar, and you along with it?
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Personal Essays
When the Sun Is Constantly Setting
Eight years later, we continue to struggle with September 11, the day our city was attacked. A report from a more remote position: aboard a military vessel in the Arctic Circle.
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Gallery
Inside the Painter’s Studio
Artist Joe Fig documents the day-to-day lives of 24 contemporary artists with photos of their studios, notes on their work habits, and interviews about where and how they make art.
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Bookbag
Havana Review
Naturally, my recent roundup of books on Cuba missed a couple of important contributions to that magical island nation's bibliography. Alongside Ned Sublette's seminal Cuba and Its Music: From the...
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Opinions
The Author and the Wonderful, Horrible, No Fun, Very Good Day
Nothing is finer than getting your book published. Nothing is worse than the day it comes out. Our food writer documents the misadventures, highs, and woes of publishing (recipe included).
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Letters From Berlin
America on the Spree
Inspired by the local architecture and the beer-swilling, chain-smoking new parents, our man in Berlin discovers equal parts Chicago and New York in Germany’s largest city.
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Of Recent Note
Superpowers, Revealed
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s…someone who can divide a dinner bill five ways! Sometimes the best abilities are the ones the world can’t see. Our staff and readers share their talents.
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Profiles
Pieces of the World
For people who lived near the World Trade Center, 9/11 can still be traced to debris that lingers around the neighborhood. A map of what the tourists don’t see.