Every time I sit down to write this column, I have to abandon my first five ideas for fear that I will hurt someone’s feelings. I don’t write fiction and I’m not clever enough to disguise people’s identities. I know a boatload of freaks, and sometimes I wish I could tell you all about them. … Read more
Forget cops and firemen; the bravest and most pitiable public servants we know are the teachers. It takes guts to face a roomful of kids these days. The neglected ones are prone to kicking. The coddled ones are prone to calling in their parents to change a grade or a rule. And the crazy ones? … Read more
Wisconsin writer C.J. Hribal explores post-World War II America through the activities of one family in his new novel, The Company Car. The story begins in 1952, with a couple getting married on It’s Your Wedding, a television show in Chicago. As the next fifty years unfold, they get taken for a ride by forces … Read more
Specimen Days spans hundreds of years, from the Industrial Revolution to a post-apocalyptic world (you can decide how far in the future that is). It’s filled with ghosts, terrorists, neurotics, aliens, adolescent prophets, and artificial humans. This all might sound more like Neil Gaiman rewriting the Left Behind series than classic Cunningham, but if Specimen … Read more
Lauren Slater’ 2004 book, Opening Skinner’s Box, raised a storm when she wrote about the experiments neobehaviorist B.F. Skinner ran on his infant daughter by confining her in a box. Deborah Skinner herself rose from the annals of science to defend her father and condemn Slater. In Blue Beyond Blue, Slater moves into the fiction … Read more
Clowes made the rare transition from favorite doodler of nerdy underdogs everywhere to Hollywood inspiration, when the movie adapted from his Ghost World graphic novel become a cult hit. The Oscar nomination he won for its screenplay hasn’t convinced him to mainstream his talents, however. In Ice Haven he continues to chronicle the idiocies and … Read more
This movie appears primed to be summer’s guiltiest pleasure: A sleek, sexy shoot-’em-up starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who are, as you read this, undoubtedly having lots of naked fun in some exotic, far-flung location. But you’ll have to read more about that in some other publication. Back to the movie, in which the … Read more
The weather is warm, the sun is high in the sky–but don’t let yourself be deceived. There are crooks, murderers, and plenty of weirdos out there to get you, especially if you happen to be a winsome blonde. Find out how you might meet your end in this summer-long series that covers the early years … Read more
Time magazine dubbed the current glut of twenty-somethings “Twixters” because so many are hovering between (or betwixt) college and career. Mired in this limbo, many embark on a quest to “find themselves,” which often requires changing jobs and apartments every six months. But instead of taking a decade to “think about stuff,” what would it … Read more
Burned-out, third-rate rocker starts music school for kids. Nerds, jocks, and princesses find joy and meaning and unity in their newfound desire to rock out. The hit film was, of course School of Rock, starring the gloriously second-rate rocker Jack Black; less well-known, until now, is that Black’s character was based on a real person, … Read more