David Wheeler is the author of Contingency Plans and a fair number of essays around the internet. He’s been selling books for the last few years, currently at the Elliott Bay Book Co in Seattle. He works on the events team to introduce authors and sells books during any number of the 500 readings we put […]
This site/blog/whatever is brilliant. It’s brilliant because few people could pull this off well. Yet, this guy nails it. For instance, take a look at this particular review. I am also, it should be noted, completely unbiased. Just because he gave me a favorable five second review does not in any way dictate my feelings […]
It’s another gray and misty morning here in the second district of Vienna. The church bells toll to invite the sleepy-eyed revelers from the night before to churches that, except for Christmas tourists, will probably remain mostly empty. The second district is historically the Jewish district of Vienna, where Freud lived and hung out. For […]
The documentary The People vs. George Lucas, with all its jokes about Ewoks and midi-chlorians, is perhaps destined to be enjoyed most by Star Wars superfans. However, it raises a series of intriguing questions about creativity and control which extend far beyond a certain “galaxy far, far away.” Who “owns” a film or work of […]
Once upon a time — 1979, to be exact — along a freeway in the southwest, a car carrying the Muppets broke down. And their pursuit of a dream (“to make millions of people happy!”) came to a crashing halt. So they built a campfire beside their broken-down car. Kermit the Frog walked into the […]
I was downtown talking with people at Occupy Chicago last Monday, and I met a man named Les, who I mistook for the leader of the movement. I’m sure you all know that OWS is leaderless, but I’ve always assumed this is reall just code for Leader-Les, who happened to be a 67 year old […]
Physicist Alan Lightman has a fascinating piece on the “multiverse” in the latest issue of Harper’s (“The Accidental Universe,” Dec. 2011). Multiverse theories posit that what we have long thought of as the Universe, all the galaxies we can observe, is just one of many universes—perhaps an infinite or endlessly growing number of them, or perhaps […]
Brian McLaren recently stopped by in order to, I can only guess, further darken my already dark towels (you better know that reference). McLaren is the author of a number of books including, A Generous Orthodoxy, A New Kind of Christianity, and his most recent, Naked Spirituality. Resisting the temptation to ask if he enjoyed […]
You could call Sigur Rós’ Inni a “concert film” but that’s a bit of a misnomer. Yes, the 74 minute movie consists primarily of footage culled from the band’s performances at London’s Alexandra Palace in 2008, interspersed with snippets of the band’s early performances, awkward interviews, and various antics. However, unlike many concert movies, there’s no sense of […]