A few weeks ago I had some thoughts on the embarrassing displays of blasphemy in this season of Survivor. A quick refresher. Full story »

Horses could once again be on the dinner menu for U.S. consumers overturning a five year ban that shuttered U.S. horse slaughterhouses.

Horse meat is considered a delicacy by those epicurean connoisseurs in places like France and Japan.

President Obama signed an Agricultural appropriations bill on November 18 that included a provision for funding inspections of horse slaughterhouses. Reports the Washington Times, ”The ban had been imposed in 2006 when Congress defunded the government’s ability to inspect plants that butchered horses for consumption. Without inspections, the meat couldn’t be sold, and the industry withered.”

The new bill included money for inspections, and that means horses are back, literally, on the chopping block. Full story »

Yellowstone’s “supervolcano.” Harry Turtledove.

Score!

It seemed like a no-brainer to me when I saw Supervolcano: Eruption on the bookstore’s “new arrivals” table.

For being about the world’s greatest cataclysm, though, Turtledove’s new book was more “bore” than “score.” Full story »

In the first match of round 2, The Lost Patrol handily defeated Baron Bane to advance to the semifinals. They await the winner of today’s throwdown, and my inner conflict continues unabated….

Dotsun Moon: …”Dotsun Moon’s secret weapon is the soulful and authoritative voice of Mary Ognibene. On tracks such as the breathy, skipping opener, ‘And I Rest,’ the riveting , floor-thumping standout ‘Savages, and the languid ‘Glory,’ her powerhouse pipes repeatedly amaze. Though well suited for dance club PAs, 4am is also varied and intriguing enough for intent home listening.” The Big Takeover LISTEN Full story »

As I rifled through the poetry section at the Barnes & Noble in Binghamton, NY at the start of the semester, I came across Annie Boyle’s Age of Miracles. The cover featured a woman draped in what looked to be a white gauze toga holding a drama mask. The white “skin” of the mask was translucent enough to show subcutaneous circuitry criss-crossing underneath like high-tech veins.

“Technology is a vehicle for our humanity,” declared the first poem, “Muse/Manifesto.” “It is the face of humanity, its functions reveal our designs, desires, deficiencies, deifications, discontents.”

I flipped through the book. Science fiction poetry. I’d never seen such a thing before. It was good stuff. So, after reading Age of Miracles, I called up Annie Boyle to ask her about it. Full story »

In conjunction with our  interview with poet Annie Boyle, S&R is pleased to feature an exclusive look at a couple of her poems: “The Gears are Gods” and “Crisis Engine.” Full story »

Christopher Hitchens has died at the age of 62.

If Chris Corner’s tribute to the man seems conflicted, that is perhaps appropriate. Full story »

In the final match of round one we had a close encounter, with Rose Hill Drive finally easing by The Raveonettes. Now, it’s on to round 2, and from this point forward I’m going to be in a state of constant conflict. Here, for instance: two bands I love, two bands that produced CDs that are among the year’s best.

Baron Bane: ”LPTO is truly a lovely listen front to back; while its energetic moments drift unassumingly by, however, it is the quiet that resonates the longest.” – Pop Matters : LISTEN

Full story »

In eleventh grade, during a unit on public speaking in English class, I gave a brief speech on sharks. I had, by that time, been enamored with sharks for the better part of a decade and planned to go to college to become a marine biologist. I concluded my speech with a plea for their protection. “Sharks have more to fear from us than we have to fear from them,” I said.

My teacher didn’t buy it. After all, she’d seen Jaws—hadn’t everybody?—and she didn’t believe that sharks had anything at all to fear from us.

I wish I’d had Juliet Eilperin’s book Demon Fish to offer as a rebuttal.

Of course, I delivered that speech in the spring of 1986. Eilperin’s book came out last June. It was the most depressing book I read all summer.

Demon Fish is a tale of woe. If you want to be disheartened by the overexploitation of our oceans, this’ll do it for you in no time. Full story »

I worry about hyperbole whenever I hear someone talk about a physical reaction to a piece of writing, so I’m hesitant to describe Rachel McKibbens’ book of poems, Pink Elephant, as a gut punch—but damn, it is. At one point, it also sent willies down my spine, too.

This is a collection of poems not to be trifled with.

“I am the star of the violence,” she warns in her first poem. In the second, “The First Time,” she and her brother are trying to run away. It might be any two kids running away from home, as almost all children are apt attempt at some point.

But subsequent poems make it clearer and clearer—and more horrifying—why they’re trying to escape. Jealousies, abuse, alcoholism, molestation, terror. “God was too busy for kids like us,” she realizes. Full story »

Come with me. Through crazed,
Embroidered webbing of night, come.
Without your aid I am useless. I need

To gallop past lips red and hungry, dripping potions.
I move in shame and stumbling;
Give me your holy dance. Light the flagstones,

One by one, flowering in praying light.
The night is weeping worms
And you must choose my steps: Full story »

George Whitman probably is an unfamiliar name to most Americans, but practically any American who has spent any at all time in Paris has at least wandered through the Shakespeare & Company bookshop, of which Whitman was the owner and proprietor. He was 98, and knew everyone. He had been a bit less mobile the past few years, but you could usually see him sitting around upstairs somewhere, puttering, or just sitting and talking. What an amazing set of memories, which are now no longer with us. Full story »

As it turns out, today is the birthday of Doco guitarist Trev Booth and the band’s fans have handed him a nice present in the form of a resounding win over Viva Voce in round 1. They advance to face the winner of today’s match.

Speaking of which, we now have a clash of styles to consider.

Rose Hill Drive: A very un-Boulderlike band from Boulder, CO – hard-rocking, fun-loving, no-frills party rock – raw, emotive, organic. LISTEN

Full story »

by Robert Becker

My squishy optimism sagged, having just finished Richard Condon’s scathing, witty, mesmerizing masterpiece, The Manchurian Candidate. If you liked the acclaimed ’62 movie, and delight in devilish wit, grab the novel: the satire and drama are darker, amusingly bereft of character redemption and confidence in human advancement.

Replace waterboarding with 1950’s brainwashing as the underlying metaphor – then cast Palin, Perry, or Bachmann as the Joe-McCarthy-style demagogue, and the book is current.  However well-made, no establishment ‘60’s film dare replicate the brash, authorial boldness, as Louis Menand captures it: Condon was a “a cynic of an upbeat type, not unlike Tom Wolfe: his belief that everything is basically shit did not get in the way of his pleasure in making fun of it.”    Full story »