Author: Christopher Bahn

New Mexican mystery novelist Tony Hillerman has been the unofficial cultural ambassador of the Navajo Nation for more than 30 years. His Indian detectives, Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee, have introduced thousands of white readers to the rich culture of the tribes of the American Southwest in bestsellers like A Thief of Time and Skinwalkers.…

David Cronenberg is infamous for his unique style of horror filmmaking. His films–among them The Fly, Naked Lunch, and Dead Ringers–gaze with icy formalism on worlds where biology has gone mad. They’re a catalogue of physical breakdowns, sexual dysfunctions, florid mutations and hallucinations. His latest, Spider, based on Patrick McGrath’s novel, stars Ralph Fiennes as…

The Rake goes inside the criminally overshadowed AV Club. If The Onion is the nation’s class clown, the AV Club—the newspaper’s unheralded entertainment section—is its thoughtful little wallflower of a brother. Originally a wacky complement to the newspaper’s celebrated satire, the section grew into its current format under editor Stephen Thompson, who fought for a…

After the Coke bottle, the most enduring icon of the 20th century might be the mushroom cloud. Unlocking the secrets of the atom is science’s crowning achievement, equating matter with energy, and discovering a cheap and limitless source of power. On the other hand, it represents the all-too-possible destruction of life as we know it…

When Senator Norm Coleman takes office in Washington next month, he’ll have some big decisions to make, on everything from war to social security. He may also need to decide on a new dentist, a process that certainly can tax a man’s courage. Norm has already proven himself on that score: In 1999, he underwent…

How many art-house theaters does one town need? A city’s “real” cultural vibrancy can often be measured by the size of its network of art-house cinemas. While the Twin Cities scene is hardly New York, we’re well ahead of cities of comparable size. Fifteen years ago, the Uptown and University Film Society were about the…