On Friday, Timothy Noah published the results of his online survey which asked the question, “If you had to pay to read each New York Times columnist, how much would you pay?” Apropos of the Times announcing that they were going to place their columnists in a premium subscription-only area of the Times website, Noah … Read more
A friend of mine told me over the weekend that she missed my poetry posts. (If you are nostalgic, you can go back to any posts from April for the pedantry.) But that comment, and today’s news from Iraq made me think of one of my favorites: Horace’s Ode 3.2–the famous “Dulce et decorum est … Read more
After a time the beggars just sort of receded and became a peripheral blur in my daily routine, the traffic I had to navigate each day on my way to work. There were almost no cars in my part of town. A number of people had beat-up motor scooters or bicycles, but the narrow maze … Read more
–Illustration by James Dankert Fridays aren’t gonna work for me. I’m not a writer, dammit. I can’t be expected to drag my ass home from the day job (and I do mean drag my ass; some days it feels like I’m hauling a Volkswagon Beetle behind me), watch a baseball game, and then sit down … Read more
It’s probably something of a red flag when your barber has a Superman logo tattooed on his forearm. And this is probably not the sort of monologue you want to hear from some guy while he’s cutting your hair: I’m not shitting you, I’m at the end of my fucking rope here. I know damn … Read more
We’ve mentioned before the many, many awards that are minted each year for every little print publication under the sun. Some forms of industrial recognition are more credible than others, of course, but mostly they are an exercise in narcissism. We’re not sure anyone outside the industry cares that much, given that any publication that … Read more
There’s another article in today’s Miami Herald about Luis Posada Carriles. (Search their archives for a long list of more stories on this jerk.) Here’s the basic deal: Posada blew up a Cuban airliner that was on its way to Venezuela. He blew up some hotels in Havana. He tortured leftist prisoners in Venezuela. Even … Read more
Kristina Larsson always wanted to dance, but she was turned off by the phony smiles she saw fixed on the faces of most performers. “When I saw flamenco, I thought, ‘Wow! They’re not smiling!’” she says. It was that subtle epiphany that helped this Minnesotan fall in love with a dance associated with the sultry … Read more
Paulette writes: Rake, Rake — whose got my Rake. Well, I have two men on vacation in Sayulita Mexico, vying for a Rake read. They had to take turns. Here are pix of both sitting on a palapa at the top of “gringo hill” — there’s no specific evidence of place, but you can see … Read more
Mark writes: I had the opportunity to catch up on the latest edition of the Rake while waiting in line to cross into Nicaragua from Costa Rica on vacation… and there was plenty of time to catch up. There were a total of three stops crossing the border where we had to pay both coming … Read more