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Recommended Reading
from Bruce
After the inferno (guardian.co.uk)
Are bushfires inevitable - or can they be managed? When they strike again, should people flee or fight the flames? The catastrophic blazes in Australia have left its inhabitants full of questions, doubts and fears. Novelist Thomas Keneally considers the fallout.
N. Evan Van Zelfden: What's Killing the Video-Game Business? (Slate.com)
So how can publishers lose money amid such incredible sales and record growth? The answer is simple: They're spending more than they're bringing in. Game development budgets have ballooned, and publishers are reeling because they can't keep the costs under control.
Robert Smith: There's no Cure without pain (timesonline.co.uk)
Keeping the most unstable band alive for so long has been a hard slog for Robert Smith, he explains to Mark Beaumont .
Walter Tunis: With Public Enemy or as a public speaker, Chuck D will be heard (McClatchy Newspapers)
One of the first concepts taught to children in school summarizes three elemental requisites of education as "The 3 R's." The irony of this phrase, of course, is that only one of the subjects begins with R.
Steve Rothaus: Celebrated composer bemoans youthful ignorance of musical standards (McClatchy Newspapers)
Once the fearless wunderkind of Broadway and Hollywood show music, composer Marvin Hamlisch now is a bit afraid.
Marley & Me: a real golden labrador (timesonline.co.uk)
John Grogan tells Kevin Maher why his book about his dog, Marley & Me, became a bestseller that spawned a hit film.
Cassandra Spratling: "Love lessons: Sister Souljah talks about her new book, family and living the life you want" (Detroit Free Press)
She is the literary hero of the hip-hop generation. Sister Souljah - best-selling author, activist, educator, mother and wife - is touring the country promoting her latest novel, "Midnight: A Gangster Love Story" (Atria, $26.95).
Verne Gay: Conan O'Brien gets ready to host 'The Tonight Show' (Newsday)
Conan O'Brien was hot 10 years ago. We know this because Entertainment Weekly, grand master of hotness, told us so ...
Hal Boedeker: Conan O'Brien prepares for an earlier late night (The Orlando Sentinel)
Conan O'Brien is repeating favorite clips before he departs "Late Night" ....
MATT MAZUR: Mike Leigh and His Affinity for Writing Brilliant Female Characters (popmatters.com)
The director of Happy-Go-Lucky tells PopMatters: "ŠEach of us is the center of his or her universe. Everybody is as valid as everybody else."
100 Essential Female Film Performances: Under the Radar (popmatters.com)
Indie darlings on shoestring budgets, foreign art house staples, and sometimes straight to DVD (but always straight from the heart), this list includes women who might be considered prolific stars, by some standards, whose work unfortunately fell by the wayside. It also includes women who you've probably never even heard of, but each film and performance included is an underdog begging to be rooted for in its own way.
John Metz Five questions with ... Oscar nominee Viola Davis of 'Doubt' (McClatchy Newspapers)
Viola Davis seemingly has rocketed onto the scene with her strong performance as Mrs. Miller in "Doubt," a role that earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. But the South Carolina-born actress is no newcomer, having won many awards for her stage work.
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Reader Comment
RE: Leonard Cohen
Marty
Leonard Cohen one of my most favorites. Would give anything to see him in concert, but won't happen. Love his "Hallelujah", and particularly this version, which seems to be down from Google and YouTube. BUT still here -
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny morning, overcast afternoon.
Here's the updated Razzies - 2009 page.
This one will be updated later tonight.
Visits Darfur Refugees
George Clooney
George Clooney says refugees from Sudan's war-racked Darfur region that he's been visiting this week are echoing a message: "Bring us justice."
About 250,000 Darfur refugees live in refugee camps in Chad near Sudan's border, just a fraction of the nearly 2.5 million people displaced by a conflict that has killed about 300,000 people. Fighting erupted in 2003 Darfur's rebels took up arms against Sudan's government complaining of discrimination and neglect.
Clooney said his trip to the camps in Chad comes at an "extraordinarily important moment" with the International Criminal Court about to decide whether to seek the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir for alleged war crimes in Darfur.
Clooney, who co-founded Not On Our Watch to focus global attention on Darfur, has been denied entry to Sudan. He called that a sign the government doesn't want to draw any attention to Darfur at this critical time.
George Clooney
Peregrine Falcon
Stephen Colbert
It helps to have fans in high places. Just ask Stephen Colbert, who has had a peregrine falcon making its nest atop City Hall named after him.
The male falcon was dubbed "Esteban Colbert" by Mayor Chuck Reed, an admirer of the Comedy Central star. Like the human Colbert, Esteban is comfortable before cameras; he and his new mate, Clara, have their rooftop rendezvous beamed throughout the world by way of a FalconCam the city installed when baby falcons turned up on City Hall three years ago.
The falcon is the third wild bird or mammal to be named after the host of "The Colbert Report." Breeders at the San Francisco Zoo named a bald eagle Stephen Jr. in 2006.
Last month, researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, christened a pair of elephant seals Stelephant Colbert and Jon Sealwart, the latter after Colbert's fellow Comedy Central pundit, Jon Stewart.
Stephen Colbert
'Sale Of The Century'
Yves Saint Laurent
From the Picassos that graced his walls to historic artifacts and hundreds of sculptures, the artwork that inspired late fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent went on display Saturday, three days before it is auctioned.
Billed as "the sale of the century," the auction of the 733-piece collection will disperse in three days a collection that took Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge half a century to amass.
Highlights include Piet Mondrian's 1922 painting "Composition in Blue, Red, Yellow and Black," whose squares of saturated colors inspired Saint Laurent's legendary 1965 shift dress; a wooden sculpture by Romanian Constantin Brancusi that is expected to sell for $19 million-$25 million; and a pair of bronze animal heads that disappeared from a Beijing palace in 1860 and that China now wants removed from the auction and returned.
The sale is expected to gross $250 million-$380 million. A large portion of the proceeds is to go to a foundation to support AIDS research.
Yves Saint Laurent
Obama: Save The Seals
Brigitte Bardot
Brigitte Bardot wants President Barack Obama to save the world's seals.
The French movie icon and longtime animal-rights activist has sent a letter to Obama urging him to speak out against seal hunting.
Bardot said Friday that she has "immense hope" in Obama, "even if I know that he is in demand from all directions and he already has a lot to do in his own country."
Brigitte Bardot
Economic Downturn Claims Indie Label
Touch and Go
Chicago indie label Touch and Go's decision to close its distribution business and stop signing new acts shocked the independent music community and has raised concerns about how small labels will fare in the tough economy.
Indie labels often operate with less debt and lower overhead than the majors, but their business is often very cyclical, leaving them vulnerable when they hit a trough. For example, Seattle indie Sub Pop has been declared dead by the press four times in its 20-year history, but is coming off a strong year with the success of Fleet Foxes and Flight of the Conchords.
While Touch and Go didn't produce chart-toppers, many of its acts have been highly influential. Launched in 1981 as an extension of a fanzine of the same name, Touch and Go released albums by Slint, Shellac, Silkworm, June of 44, the Jesus Lizard and the Butthole Surfers.
The label also put out the first two Yeah Yeah Yeahs EPs; their self-titled EP sold 71,000 copies, and the "Machine" EP sold 24,000. In 2004, Touch and Go released TV on the Radio's first album, "Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes," which sold 116,000 copies. Both TV on the Radio and Yeah Yeah Yeahs have since signed to major label Interscope.
Touch and Go
Vietnam Vets Protest
Jane Fonda
It's been decades, but Jane Fonda still can't shake her "Hanoi Jane" image from the Vietnam War.
About a dozen Vietnam veterans and other protesters on Saturday picketed the theater where the 71-year-old actress is starring in the Broadway play "33 Variations," telling passers-by that she had once visited their Viet Cong enemy in Hanoi.
Though she still defends her anti-war activism, Fonda has acknowledged that the incident was "a betrayal" of American forces.
"That two-minute lapse of sanity will haunt me until the day I die," she wrote.
Jane Fonda
Ahnold der Fluffer
Movie Industry
California finally is offering production incentives to filmmakers and television producers.
That surprising reality had industry and economic executives pinching themselves Thursday.
"I'm sort of floored that it did happen," said Jack Kyser, chief economist with the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp., a private research organization.
Set to take effect in 2011, a five-year program to fight runaway production was included in a new state budget passed in the early morning hours after an all-night emergency session of the Legislature. The program will provide up to $100 million per year in tax incentives for qualifying film and TV productions.
Movie Industry
Man Faces Fallout
`Wife Swap'
It's safe to say Stephen Fowler probably wishes he never appeared on "Wife Swap."
Fowler's stint on the ABC reality show last month, in which he called a rural Missouri woman spending two weeks in his San Francisco home stupid and simple, has made him famous in the worst way.
His performance has inspired a Web site, StephenFowlerSucks.com, a Facebook group, "I Can not Stand Stephen Fowler from `Wife Swap,'" and public condemnation by his own wife, who on her blog urged him to get professional help.
What has generated such wrath is Fowler's condescending treatment of Gayla Long, a mother of four from rural Missouri whose family likes fast food and paintball. In wince-producing remarks, Fowler, who is British, wrote off middle America with such pronouncements as "Your two languages seem to be bad English and redneck."
`Wife Swap'
Becoming Saint
Father Damien
A 19th-century Belgian priest who ministered to leprosy patients in Hawaii, and died of the disease, will be declared a saint this year at a Vatican ceremony presided over by Pope Benedict XVI.
The Rev. Damien de Veuster's canonization date of Oct. 11 was set Saturday.
Born Joseph de Veuster in 1840, he took the name Damien and went to Hawaii in 1864 to join other missionaries of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. Nine years later, he began ministering to leprosy patients on the remote Kalaupapa peninsula of Molokai island, where some 8,000 people had been banished amid an epidemic in Hawaii in the 1850s.
The priest eventually contracted the disease, also known as Hansen's disease, and died in 1889 at age 49.
Father Damien
Eviction Notice
Kyrgyzstan
The United States was on the verge of being kicked out of its only military outpost in Russia's historic backyard after Kyrgyzstan Friday gave U.S. forces six months to vacate an air base that serves as a key supply hub for troops in Afghanistan.
The Manas base, created shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, at first served as a symbol of what seemed like a budding strategic partnership between the U.S. and Russia.
But as relations between the two countries soured in recent years, the base came to represent the renewed competition between the two former Cold War rivals.
One obvious alternative could be Uzbekistan, where the U.S. had a military air base supporting the Afghan conflict in 2001-2005.
Kyrgyzstan
In Memory
Dorothy Bridges
Dorothy Bridges, a poet, widow of "Sea Hunt" actor Lloyd Bridges and matriarch of the acting family that includes sons Jeff and Beau, died Monday. She was 93.
Born Dorothy Dean Simpson on Sept. 19, 1915, in Worcester, Mass., she was married to Lloyd Bridges for 60 years, until his death in 1998. The two met while performing in a play at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Dorothy Bridges later appeared in a handful of movies and an episode of "Sea Hunt" with her husband, whom she called Bud.
Bridges wrote poetry for five decades. In 2005, at age 89, she published "You Caught Me Kissing: A Love Story." It included a collection of Valentine's Day poems she wrote to her husband each year, a practice she continued after his death.
Dorothy Bridges
In Memory
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan, an Irish poet and novelist who refused to let cerebral palsy get in the way of his writing, has died. He was 43.
Nolan choked on a piece of food Friday at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, according to a statement from his family carried in the Irish media. The hospital confirmed his death Saturday.
Nolan's brain was starved of oxygen during birth, leaving him unable to speak or control his arms or legs. He might have remained isolated from the outside world were it not for a drug, Lioresal, which restored some of his muscle function. His parents nurtured their partially paralyzed son's literary talent.
Using a "unicorn stick" strapped to his forehead to tap the keys of a typewriter, Nolan laboriously wrote out messages and, eventually, poems and books as well.
Bernadette Nolan, Christopher's mother, said her son was 11 when his writing first turned lyrical.
His autobiography, "Under the Eye of the Clock: The Life Story of Christopher Nolan," won the prestigious Whitbread Award in 1988. The third-person account describes Nolan's longing for an education and the liberation of finally being able to type out his feelings. The book was a frank but sometimes hilarious account of his disability: he described his arm flying out to grab a woman's skirt and how his mouth sometimes remained stubbornly shut when he wanted to take communion.
Nolan disliked sentimental stories about his disability. Although the "Under the Eye of the Clock" drew offers to have his book made into a movie, Nolan refused on the grounds that the production would be a sympathy piece, according to the Irish Independent.
Christopher Nolan
In Memory
Socks
Socks, the White House cat during the Clinton administration who waged war on Buddy the pup, has died. He was around 18.
Socks had lived with Bill Clinton's secretary, Betty Currie, in Hollywood, Md., since the Clintons left the White House in early 2001.
Socks had reached his late teens - an advanced age for a cat - when reports surfaced in late 2008 that he had cancer and Currie had ruled out invasive efforts to prolong his life.
Socks was what feline-lovers call a tuxedo cat - mostly black with white down the front and belly and on his feet, suggesting a fashionable dandy in a black satin evening jacket with a snowy shirt peeping out. He had markings that looked a bit like a mustache and goatee.
Chelsea Clinton's pet first appeared in the news in November 1992 after then-Gov. Bill Clinton won the presidency and the family was the still in the governor's mansion in Little Rock, Ark. Socks became an early symbol of privacy-vs.-media in the Clinton era when photographers got a little aggressive as he took a stroll outside.
Life changed for Socks in the White House, when his easy access to the out-of-doors was necessarily curtailed. One official conceded that, yes, Socks was on a leash while outside.
Socks
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