Month: June 2003

The Walker’s concurrent exhibit on boxing makes a serendipitous theme for this year’s installment of our favorite local open-air arts event. The sweet science has always been a favorite subject in American filmmaking—you could put together a series many times longer than this six-week run without coming close to running out of watchable fare. The…

One could approach Oak Street’s July retrospective as an aesthetic exegesis of the changing modes of cinematic expression in the mid-century heyday of the Hollywood studio system. One could seek evidence of unique directorial styles finding voice in an artistic medium defined strongly by the visions of the moneymen on top. Alternatively, one could just…

The truth of the matter is that we’ve blown off Aquatennial for years. Crowds make us nervous, and we certainly don’t need the imprimatur of City Fathers (or Mothers) to enjoy its most bountiful amenity—our lakes and rivers. And yet, Aquatennial has gotten so big that at least one affiliated event is actually drawing national…

A few months ago, Zadie Smith wrote in the New York Times about being an extra in a PBS screen adaptation of her autobiographical debut novel, White Teeth. It was a touching piece in which the writer acknowledged the shortcomings of her novel, and the bizarre experience of being an extra in the movie of…

He may be one of the most prominent Indian writers around today, but Sherman Alexie doesn’t play to the expectations of either white or Native American audiences. Though he almost always writes about characters who are, like himself, Indians from the Seattle/Spokane area, he feels no obligation to the traditions of identity politics and aims…

MIT physics professor Lightman is best known for Einstein’s Dreams, a brilliantly elliptical series of spare, magical-realist vignettes which explored what it would be like if the laws of physics worked differently—what-if tales not so much science fiction as brief essays on the limits of human nature. He switched gears for The Diagnosis, a National…