Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Diane Taylor: The women who kill to get babies (guardian.co.uk)
Briton Linda Carty is on death row for killing a mother to steal her newborn child. But the US is seeing the rise of an even more horrendous crime - the murder of pregnant women and the theft of their foetuses.
Farhad Manjoo: The iPod Is Dead (slate.com)
Why the days of the dedicated music player have come and gone.
Brian Crecente: Could gaming soon overshadow music in Seattle? (Kotaku.com)
This Labor Day weekend two giant shows took over Seattle: one dedicated to music, the other to video games. But only one of them is growing.
Gerry Visco: Hunter S. Thompson's Widow Speaks About Her Husband and Her Book (New York Press)
Anita Thompson was taking a semester off from college when she met Hunter through a mutual friend in 1999. Soon after, she began organizing the unpublished manuscripts and photographs from his archive, which consisted of about 1,000 boxes in their basement.
Tanya Gold: Confessions of a secret Mills & Boon junkie (guardian.co.uk)
Mills & Boon publishes 720 romantic novels a year. Featuring the kind of heroes their female readers can sigh and swoon over, they outsell true crime, science fiction and God in the bookshops. As fiction, they're easy to read - so surely it's easy to write one ...
"Backstory in Blue: Ellington at Newport '56" by John Fass Morton: A review by Stanley Crouch
Through our remarkable technology we witness the fundamental dilemma of our age, which is the use of machines that bespeak the genius of the species for the trivialization of the profound.
Interview with Great White (thecelebritycafe.com)
Great White rocked the music scene in the 1980s, and now they're back on tour. Michael Lardie, one of the original members, talked to TheCelebrityCafe.com's Julie Ruggirello about the band's current tour and some stories from the road, including getting a little rowdy on a plane and the tragedy at The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island.
Bobcat Goldthwait Talks About the Rebirth of His Career (Philadelphia City Paper)
Make no mistake -- Goldthwait is fully aware of his place in the culture. "If somebody told me Michael Winslow was making movies," he says of his Police Academy co-star, "I'd be kinda skeptical. I'd have a very arched eyebrow."
Bill Gibron: Jerry Lewis - GENIUS! (popmatters.com)
Jerry Lewis remains an elusive cinematic figure.
Roger Ebert: Review of "9" (PG-13)
The first images are spellbinding. In close-up, thick fingers make the final stitches in a roughly humanoid little rag doll, and binocular eyes are added. This creature comes to life, walks on tottering legs, and ventures fearfully into the devastation of a bombed-out cityscape.
PAUL CONSTANT: By the Numbers (thestranger.com)
'9' Is Gorgeous and Vapid.
Roger Ebert's Journal: Darwin walks out on Genesis
During the first press screening here of "Creation," during a scene when Charles Darwin walks out of church during a sermon on the first book of Genesis, an audience member stood up and walked out. Was he offended by the film? There's no way to say.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'So Says Michael' Edition
Capitalism is evil. That is the conclusion U.S. documentary maker Michael Moore comes to in his latest movie "Capitalism: A Love Story," which premiered at the Venice film festival Sunday.
Do you agree with his assessment? (No need to respond, SallyP(al), we KNOW what you think!... Well, OK, go ahead... But, try keeping it to no more than novella length, eh? LOL...)
Send your response to
wrote:
From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Reader Suggestion
New Link
Thought this was right up your alley.
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Quite pleasant.
Concert Tour
Leonard Cohen
Songwriter Leonard Cohen, one of Montreal's most beloved talents, faced controversy in his hometown Saturday over his upcoming performance in Tel Aviv to benefit Palestinian and Israeli peace groups.
Just a handful of people - less than a dozen - showed up Saturday at a protest organized by a local pro-Palestinian group. They handed out pamphlets to passers-by in front of Cohen's favourite Montreal haunt, a breakfast and bagel cafe.
Demonstrations have dogged the 74-year-old poet and singer during his world tour since he announced the Tel Aviv date and Amnesty International recently yanked support from the charity concert.
A concert scheduled in the West Bank city of Ramallah was also cancelled after becoming embroiled in the boycott campaign.
Leonard Cohen
San Sebastian Festival
Ian McKellen
Actor Ian McKellen will receive a lifetime achievement award at this month's San Sebastian film festival in Spain, the organisers announced Friday.
The 70-year-old "Lord of the Rings" actor will be honoured with the festival's Donostia Award, which goes to "a great film personality in recognition for their work and career," they said in a statement.
Best-known internationally for his roles as Magneto in the "X-Men" series and as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" saga, McKellen has also had a long career as a Shakespearean actor on the stage.
The 57th edition of the San Sebastian film festival, the oldest and most prestigious event of its kind in the Spanish speaking world, takes place from September 18 to 26 in the coastal city in northern Spain.
Ian McKellen
Ardent Fan
George Clooney
A fan of actor George Clooney stripped to his boxer shorts in front of the Hollywood star and asked if he could "kiss him, just once."
"I am gay, George," the unidentified man said during a news conference at the Venice Film Festival Tuesday. "Take me, choose me George, please. May I kiss you, just once?"
Clooney was unflappable in responding with a smile, "It's hard when you take a big chance and it doesn't really work."
Clooney was attending the Venice Film Festival to present his new movie "The Men Who Stare at Goats," directed by Grant Heslov. The film was screened Tuesday out of competition.
George Clooney
Disney Expo
Travolta Family
The Travolta family has made their first public appearance since the death of their son, Jett, at the beginning of this year.
John Travolta, wife Kelly Preston and daughter Ella Blue took the stage at Disney's D23 Expo in Anaheim on Friday, where they greeted the crowd and posed for photos. The stars appeared to promote their new movie, "Old Dogs," which features the whole family - including Ella Blue in her screen debut.
Another surprise attendee at the event was Johnny Depp, who appeared in character as Captain Jack Sparrow from the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series. A fourth film in the series, "On Stranger Tides," was announced on Friday with a Summer 2011 release date.
Travolta Family
Remaking "Yellow Submarine"
Disney
Walt Disney Co is to remake the zany 1960s Beatles movie "Yellow Submarine" in 3-D in a deal with the band's company Apple Corps.
Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook said on Friday the new "Yellow Submarine" will be directed by Oscar-winning director Robert Zemeckis using the same motion-capture effects he employed in the family movie "Polar Express."
It will incorporate the 16 Beatles songs and recordings from the original film, licensed from Sony/ATV Music Publishing and EMI Capitol Records. No release date was announced.
The original film, about a peaceful, music-loving underwater community that is attacked by music hating "blue meanies", was released in the U.S. in 1968 and directed by George Dunning.
Disney
Spared $358M In Damages
Microsoft
A federal appeals court said Friday that Microsoft Corp. does not have to pay Alcatel-Lucent $358 million for patent infringement because of problems with how the damages were calculated.
The disputed patent covers a method of entering information into fields on a computer screen without using a keyboard. Alcatel-Lucent says Microsoft's Outlook calendar and other programs illegally used this technology.
A U.S. District Court jury determined that damages should roughly equal what Microsoft would have paid up front to license the technology from Alcatel-Lucent. But Friday, the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit said the telecommunications company didn't prove its technology was valuable enough to have merited $358 million in royalties.
However, in the same ruling, the judges affirmed the underlying verdict against Microsoft, saying it was supported by substantial evidence.
Microsoft
A Day At The Beach
MRSA
Dangerous staph bacteria have been found in sand and water for the first time at five public beaches along the coast of Washington, and scientists think the state is not the only one with this problem.
The germ is MRSA, or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - a hard-to-treat bug once rarely seen outside of hospitals but that increasingly is spreading in ordinary community settings such as schools, locker rooms and gyms.
Finding it at the beach suggests one place that people may be picking it up, said Marilyn Roberts, a microbiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
No staph was found in samples from two beaches in southern California.
MRSA
House For Sale
Chicago
If you've got the money, you could be President Barack Obama's neighbor in Chicago.
The 17-room house next door to his home in a ritzy neighborhood on the city's south side is on the market. It doesn't have a price tag yet, but the listing agent expects the "Obama factor" to play a role. Homes in the area usually go for between $1 million and $2.5 million.
"We're looking for the people that want to live next to the president and they're willing to pay a premium for it," said listing agent Matt Garrison.
The current owners bought the 6,000-square-foot home that has eight bedrooms and 3 1/2 bathrooms for $35,000 in 1973, Garrison said.
Chicago
New Show
Body Worlds
German anatomists plan a new show dedicated solely to dead bodies having sex as part of the Body Worlds exhibitions.
Gunther von Hagens and his wife Angelina Whalley show corpses prepared using a technique invented by von Hagens called "plastination," that removes water from specimens and preserves them with silicon rubber or epoxy resin.
"It's not my intention to show certain sexual poses. My goal is really to show the anatomy and the function," Body Worlds creative director Whalley told Reuters in an interview, adding the sex exhibition may open next year.
Von Hagens has already triggered uproar with a new exhibit which shows just two copulating corpses.
Body Worlds
In Memory
Willy Ronis
Willy Ronis, the last of France's postwar greats of photography who captured the essence of Paris in black and white scenes of everyday life, died Saturday. He was 99.
Lovers, nudes and scenes from Paris streets were the mainstay of Ronis' photographs, which reflect the so-called humanist school of photography in an award-winning career that began in the 1930s and reaped honors for him in France and abroad.
Ronis, along with friend Robert Doisneau and photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson, were among France's great photographers who emerged after World War II. The three along with two other photographers were honored as early as 1953 by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Photographs of eastern Paris, where Ronis lived, were collected in a book of the Belleville and Menilmontant neighborhoods that reached cult status in France. His photos of lovers against the Paris skyline or a nude at a wash basin also helped define him. Ronis' last photo, taken in 2001, was of a nude.
Born in Paris on Aug. 14, 1910, Ronis studied violin, but gave up a music career to take over the family photo studio when his father, Emmanuel Ronis, fell ill. For four years, he photographed weddings, babies and communions.
A month after his father died in 1936, Ronis did his first reportage, a Bastille Day parade. He worked steadily until World War II, when he joined the army. When the Nazis invaded France, Ronis, born to Jewish parents who had fled the pogroms, moved to unoccupied France.
Ronis worked for numerous publications, including Life magazine, and collected dozens of honors throughout his career, in France, the U.S. and elsewhere.
His numerous awards began with the Kodak prize in 1947. A decade later, he received the gold medal at the Venice Biennale. In 2007, he was honored in New York at the 5th annual Lucie Awards, which celebrates photographers, for lifetime achievement.
Ronis is an Officer in France's prestigious National Order of Merit and was named a Commander of Arts and Letters. In 1983, Ronis bequeathed his works to the French state.
Willy Ronis
In Memory
Pierre Cossette
Pierre Cossette, who founded the modern Grammy Awards and produced the globally televised music awards ceremony for 35 years, died of congestive heart failure at a Montreal hospital. He was 85.
Cossette, a native of Valleyfield, Quebec, was an accomplished television and theater producer who managed some of American pop music's most influential early bands. But he is best known for guiding the Grammy Awards from its early days as a stuffy, unsuccessful production to the industry institution it has become.
In its early years, the Grammy show was an hourlong compilation of recorded performances, and it was not a commercial success. When the production rights became available in 1971, Cossette already had a successful career in the music business as a producer and manager.
He had the ambitious idea to turn the show into a grand musical showcase full of live performances, but he had difficulty selling networks on his vision. Executives were particularly skeptical that there was an audience for a performance-based TV show. But Cossette - nicknamed "Showbiz" - persevered.
The Grammy Museum, which opened in December 2008, is called the Pierre Cossette Center and contains a corner exhibit dedicated to him.
Cossette produced the Grammy Awards until 2005, when his son took over the job for Cossette Productions.
Before working on the Grammys, Cossette served as personal manager for Ann-Margret, Vic Damone, Dick Shawn, and Rowan & Martin. He is credited with pioneering the Las Vegas lounge act format. Soon, Cossette struck out on his own by founding Dunhill Records, where the roster included the Mamas and the Papas, Steppenwolf, Johnny Rivers and Three Dog Night.
He later sold the label and became a TV producer. He got his start with Johnny Mann's "Stand Up and Cheer," and expanded his roster to include "The Glen Campbell Show," Sammy Davis's "Sammy and Company," "Salute," "ShaNaNa," and "The Andy Williams Show."
Pierre Cossette
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