rakemag Most would agree that finding humor in 9/11 seems nigh-impossible. But humor is too essential—to the human condition and to our need to cope with the enormity of the disaster—to discard entirely. That Craig Wright found a way both to be funny and to face the great darkness at the heart of 9/11 is remarkable; … Read more
If you want to catch a rising star, this is a good place to look. The venerable Second City comedy troupe, in business since 1959, is easily America’s most prolific source of comedy talent. Besides Belushi, Candy, Murray, Radner and the rest of the Saturday Night Live and SCTV crew you probably already know about, … Read more
The Jungle and Craig Wright aren’t the only theatrical team tackling 9/11 this month. The Illusion’s Northern Lights project, in fact, is an admirably ambitious affair, staging eleven plays that grapple with the meaning of that pivotal event of our time, all newly commissioned and selected from among eighty contenders. The works include Newsday columnist … Read more
Considered one of Chekhov’s best—if shortest—plays, The Cherry Orchard’s mix of comedy, tragedy and romance in in turn-of-the-century Russia is still relevant, given the hardships that continue to plague the country. Madame Ranevskaya leaves her no-good husband in Paris and returns to her homeland estate to tend to its beautiful orchard. She struggles with money, … Read more
The publication of political books is coming so thick and fast that you’d be forgiven for wondering if a recent NEA study, the one about the decline of reading in America, just plain got it wrong. Among them is the paperback release of Molly Ivins’ best-selling Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush’s America, with an … Read more
Truly smart poetry, with its seductive surfaces, sometimes risks the hollow note. But the poems in Earthling, the first book from Minneapolis poet Steve Healey (just published by Coffee House Press), display a heart that beats with the iambic resonance of a credible soul. Intelligent, playful, and fast-moving, they also contain a sense of genuine … Read more
One of our favorite second novels is Wilton Barnhardt’s Gospel, a rollicking, world-spanning adventure starring a couple of hapless and deeply flawed archaeologists. Reading The Egyptologist, the second novel by Minneapolis-born Phillips, brought back good memories of Gospel, perhaps only because of a superficial similarity in setting and the fact that both books are damn … Read more
Ellroy. Tough-guy writer. L.A. noir. Calls himself Demon Dog. Uses short sentences. Not even complete ones. Sounds tougher that way. (Not faking toughness—see here? In new book? Page 115. Right—his mug shot.) Sure, he wrote L.A. Confidential. Still, not his fault about Kim Basinger winning Oscar when she can’t act. New book, this Destination: Morgue! … Read more
“Be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur.” So once said the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Spark has enjoyed quite a prime herself, having just published her twenty-second novel. The Finishing School is a story of literary competition and love affairs set … Read more
Wisconsin author McCown follows up his previous War Memorials with this marvelously sardonic satire of seat-of-the-pants, renegade journalism. As a boy in Alabama, Taylor Wakefield watches his no-count cousin commit a murder—and then later suffers a humiliating defeat in the National Spelling Bee by screwing up the word “responsibility.” When, years later, his cousin accuses … Read more