Columns
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Death Gets a Ticket on Guerrero
El Muertorider is born: watch artists Artemio Rodriguez and John Jota Leanos trick out a 1968 Chevy Impala.
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Swinging Modern Sounds #1: A New Blog by Rick Moody
Introduction Everybody knows the book business is in dire straits these days. The news comes in awful fusillades from the daily press. But in part the book business looks so dire right now because it has mainly been indemnified against…
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Docu-fantasia
My Winnipeg, Guy Maddin’s ‘docu-fantasia’ film about Winnipeg, Manitoba, should be out on DVD soon. Apparently there’s a book in the works as well. If you don’t know Maddin’s work, it might be described as Canadian ice cream noir, blending…
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A Staggering Amount of Brilliant Free Television
The PBS investigative documentary series Frontline presents some of the best television produced in America. At its web site (here), you can watch over 70 episodes of the program, all for free. In one recent installment (available in full here),…
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Brief Thoughts on Alvaro Mutis’s “The Tramp Steamer’s Last Port Of Call”
There is a line of James Wright I have always loved: “Where is the sea, that once solved the whole loneliness of the Midwest?” Re-reading one of the great modern sea stories, “The Tramp Steamer’s Last Port of Call,” by…
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Seen at Dusk
Brian Goggin and Dorka Keehn’s new installation, “Language of the Birds,” at the intersection of Broadway, Grant and Columbus in downtown San Francisco is a flock of solar-powered books in flight with words and phrases embedded in the ground below…
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Rumpus Original – A Review of Cadillac Records
Good music usually has a story. At 26 Beethoven lost his hearing. Bach had issues with authority. Sid Vicious’ parents were hippies. Sometimes these details explain the nature of the art, other times, they’re just interesting anecdotes that are nicely…
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Chicago Cop Blog, by Anonymous
Almost everybody who knows anything about Chicago can tell you that it is notorious for its stifling summers and bone-chilling winters. What they probably don’t know is that not all crappy Chicago seasons are created equal. In fact, in my own…
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Contemporary Art, A la Carte
Paper Magazine’s favorite artists and players in the art world tell us who and what they care about now and why, inviting us into the wider community of ideas and sensibilities that ultimately binds us together.
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One Crazy Motherfucker
I Have Fun Everywhere I Go Memoirs can be split into two rough camps: those that place their narrator front and center, and those focused on external events. The former narcissistically inflates its protagonist, even when describing misbehavior or abjection…
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Jay Smooth on “The Big Moment”
Jay Smooth is the founder of WBAI’s Underground Railroad, New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show. Like nearly all other bipeds, he has a blog. What differentiates Smooth from the pack is that his video posts on ill doctrine are…
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Miranda July on Voting
This pre-election comment still pleases me: Here’s why you should vote: you are going to really love it, the whole strange procedure. You get to walk right into a building that you would never normally be allowed in, often an…