Reading Walter Kirn’s sharp review of Methland reminded us that speed scares are nothing new. In researching the history of Benzedrine for Now the Hell Will Start, we remember coming across this 1959 Time piece about Eisenhower-era addicts and their penchant for crime. With a few linguistic tweaks, it could easily have been written last […]
Tags:Benzadrine·drugs·James Ellory·methamphetamine·Now the Hell Will Start
We touched down on Spaceship Earth after the Vietnam War’s conclusion, so we can’t say that the late Robert McNamara ever loomed particularly large in our imagination. But we do recall being gobsmacked by The Fog of War, perhaps the most thought-provoking documentary we’ve encountered. As a small memorial to McNamara, the most memorable (and […]
Tags:Japan·movies·Robert McNamara·The Fog of War·World War II
Over the holiday weekend, in addition to bidding farewell to our dead-tree labor o’ love, we found a few spare moments to start reading The Snakehead, the new book from Chatter author Patrick Radden Keefe. We’re only 50 pages in, but so far this tome gets Microkhan’s equivalent of an Ebert-ian “thumbs way up” rave. […]
Tags:China·Golden Venture·immigration·New York City·Patrick Radden Keefe·The Snakehead
We normally assume that public health constantly improves, if only incrementally for long stretches. But then along comes a story like this, detailing how Delhi’s infant mortality rate has doubled since 2005. The obvious culprit is the continuing influx of rural migrants, few of whom seek professional medical care while pregnant—or, for that matter, for […]
Tags:Delhi·India·infant mortality·Janani Suraksha Yojana·public health
We’ve made a game-time decision to join our countrymen in taking today off—or, at the very least, to work a half day, then take Microkhan Jr. down to the Graffiti Hall of Fame for a look-see (to be followed, perhaps, by a top-notch $2 taco). But we couldn’t jet without noting Uncle Sam’s 233rd birthday, […]
To borrow a sentiment from Mötley Crüe, it’s time to turn the page on Now the Hell Will Start, our dead-tree labor o’ love. This Sunday, July 5th, we’ll be reading from the book for the very last time, amid the cozy waterfront confines of Sunny’s Bar in beautiful Red Hook. If you’re in New […]
Tags:Herman Perry·Ledo Road·New York City·Now the Hell Will Start·Red Hook·Sunny's Reading Series
We’ve already expressed our boundless admiration for Madlib’s Beat Konducta in India album, arguably the most perfect slab of sonic creativity we’ve heard over the past five years. Thanks to this new Grooveshark widget, we can now bring you our favorite track off that opus—the song we’ve long imagined as playing over the credit sequence […]
We were saddened to learn of the death of Alexis “The Explosive Thin Man” Arguello, one of our all-time favorite boxers. And we were surprised to discover that just a year before his passing, Arguello had been elected the mayor of Managua. (Okay, we admit it—we don’t keep up on Nicaraguan municipal politics like we […]
Tags:Alexis Arguello·Bill Bradley·football·George Weah·Great Sasuke·Japan·Kevin Johnson·Peter Boulware·politics·sports
It took us well over a week, but we finally got around to finishing Harp of Burma last night, while sitting on the 2 train back from Brooklyn. Yes, a week-plus is an awful long time to tackle a so-called children’s book, one which clocks in at a measly 132 pages. But such is life […]
Tags:anthropology·Burma·cannibalism·Harp of Burma·Japan·psychology·World War II
If a Massachusetts pigeon breeder gets his way, out-of-state squabs could soon be aves non grata on the state’s film and TV sets. Bill Desmarais has coaxed the Massachusetts House of Representatives into considering H816 (PDF), more colloquially known as “An act relative to pigeons in motion pictures.” The bill’s text reads in full: Be […]
Tags:law·Massachusetts·movies·pigeons·politics·Smoot-Hawley·TV
In our never-ending quest to bring you the classic tracks behind our favorite hip-hop cuts, today we bring you the U-Roy and Hopeton Lewis collaboration “Tom Drunk.” It only takes a few seconds’ worth of listening to realize that the song’s best riff was long-ago copped by Reflection Eternal for “Fortified Live,” a tune notable […]
Tags:Grooveshark·hip-hop·Hopeton Lewis·music·Reflection Eternal·U-Roy
Continuing our ongoing First Contact series, today we’re gonna look back at the 1576 encounter between the English and the Inuit of Baffin Island. The details of the meet-up were recorded by one Christopher Hall, a member of a Martin Frobisher-led expedition in search of the fabled Northwest Passage to China. Upon first landing on […]
Tags:anthropology·Baffin Island·England·First Contact·history·Iniut·linguistics·Martin Frobisher
With the Obama administration in the midst of trying to dinosaur the phrase “War on Drugs,” we thought it would be worth looking at some of that 40-year-old conflict’s greatest defeats. And we found a true gem buried within this recent Department of Justice bulletin (PDF), a compilation of felony-case statistics from 2004. There are […]
Tags:crime·drugs·law·statistics·War on Drugs
