Boston's smartest podcast collects the lit, wit, wisdom, and folly of the Hub of the Universe in iPod-friendly bursts. Featuring: John Hodgman, David Axelrod, Tom Perrotta, Al Gore, Malcolm Gladwell, John Irving, Dennis Lehane, James Ellroy, David Gergen, Nick Hornby, the cast of The Wire, and many more. http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/ Phoenix Media Communications Group webmaster@phx.com(Boston Phoenix Webmaster) http://backend.userland.com/rss http://blog.thephoenix.com/RSS/ Phoenix Media Communications GroupBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicccarioli@phx.comwww.thephoenix.comwww.thephoenix.comnoBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicLive from Boston: Smart people who will make you smarterBoston's smartest podcast brings you long-form talks, readings, and panels from the Hub of the Universe. Recent episodes include exclusive events with John Hodgman, Tom Perrotta, Malcolm Gladwell, Tao Lin, and Christian Lander, Dennis Lehane on Boston noir, Rachel Maddow, the cast of The Wire, readings by James Ellroy, Nick Hornby, and Jonathan Lethem, and an academic exploration of the neuroscience of zombies. 42.346997-71.102153 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/HgeRxLbfpYQ/824532.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/824532.aspx Sat, 05 May 2012 12:30:00 GMT no Photo via MIT Civic Media Blog As we mentioned in this week&#39;s paper, this year&#39;s ROFLCon isn&#39;t just an advice animal petting zoo. It&#39;s also attracting some of the world&#39;s smartest thinkers about internet culture. At the top of the pilwww.thephoenix.com Photo via MIT Civic Media Blog As we mentioned in this week&#39;s paper, this year&#39;s ROFLCon isn&#39;t just an advice animal petting zoo. It&#39;s also attracting some of the world&#39;s smartest thinkers about internet culture. At the top of the pile is JONATHAN ZITTRAIN, founder and leader of Harvard Law School&#39;s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, author of The Future of the Internet And How To Stop It, who is not only extraordinarily smart but also exceptionally funny. This talk won&#39;t be as LOLztacular without the slides -- but we suspect you&#39;ll be able to follow along fine . . . at least until the YouTube goes up. Discussed: the internet and the things it makes, why nerds are like 3 Wolf Moon, 4Chan, Disaster Girl, a really interesting idea for using something like robots.txt for opting out of becoming a meme, Oink, &quot;tide goes in, tide goes out,&quot; CS Lewis, how to act when in the presence of all of the key actors from Star Trek The Next Generation. For a companion live-blog and a smattering of slides, see the MIT Civic Media Blog. LISTEN: Jonathan Zittrain ROFLCon III Keynote Speech [Download] Loading Please WaitBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicPhoto via MIT Civic Media Blog As we mentioned in this week&#39;s paper, this year&#39;s ROFLCon isn&#39;t just an advice animal petting zoo. It&#39;s also attracting some of the world&#39;s...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/HgeRxLbfpYQ" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/824532.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/eFRwCx7d-BM/822828.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/822828.aspx Mon, 19 Mar 2012 12:30:00 GMT no If you&#39;re a journalist in the trenches, chances are you&#39;re too busy and too poor to attend (and your publisher is too poor to send you to) SXSW Interactive, the annual to-do where all the smart, well-funded bastards go to interact with other smarwww.thephoenix.com If you&#39;re a journalist in the trenches, chances are you&#39;re too busy and too poor to attend (and your publisher is too poor to send you to) SXSW Interactive, the annual to-do where all the smart, well-funded bastards go to interact with other smart, well-funded bastards who can afford to think for five minutes about how to get us all out of this goddamn mess we&#39;re in.&nbsp; That doesn&#39;t mean you can&#39;t eavesdrop. SXSW podcasts the shit out of its panels and keynotes -- and as someone who goes nearly every year (but not this year), I&#39;ll tell you a dirty little secret: if you&#39;re willing to spend the next few weeks listening, you can get almost as much out of Austin as the muckety-mucks who actually attend. And all 15 of the panels I&#39;ve linked to below are already available on-demand for your iPod/iPhone/desktop -- so right-click and get future-ing.&nbsp; THE FUTURE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES. Executive editor Jill Abramson spills the Grey Lady&#39;s secrets to future-of-journalism guru Evan Smith, whose Texas Tribune is making everyone else look bad by getting the whole digital-news thing right. [Download MP3]&nbsp; Loading Please Wait JOURNALISM FOR THE 99 PERCENT: A PENNY PRESS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE. Fact: of the Americans who make less than $75,000 per year, less than half go online for news. Can anyone make digital journalism for the blue-collar user? Among the academics, newspeople, and entrepreneurs determined to find an answer is former Berkman Center fellow Tom Stites, who is developing a pilot project in working-class Haverhill, Massachusetts based on a consumer co-op model. [Download MP3] Loading Please Wait TWITTER KILLED THE SPORTS REPORTER. CBS Sports&#39;s Bruce Feldman and Sports Illustrated&#39;s Richard Deitsch try to come to terms with getting scooped by their sources -- a phenomenon which most reporters will tell you isn&#39;t confined to sports. The Atlantic Wire&#39;s Dashiell Bennett moderates. [Download MP3]&nbsp; Loading Please Wait SECOND SCREENS: COVERING LIVE EVENTS BETTER. Because everybody watches TV with the Twitter on now. The New York Times&#39;s deputy interactive editor Brian Hamman and culture editor Julie Bloom discuss strategies, fails, and successes of live-event coverage with ESPN.com editor in chief Patrick Stiegman. [Download MP3] Loading Please Wait AUDIENCE WANTS AND NEEDS IN NEWS. Want to drive an old-school front-page editor nuts? Start talking about how the internet provides all kinds of new ways to measure what the audience wants. [Old school news guy reading this: &quot;I DON&#39;T GIVE A FUCK WHAT THE READER WANTS! HE&#39;LL TAKE WHAT I GIVE HIM!&quot;] The people behind iPad reader/aggregator/magazines Evri and Pulse discuss how they&#39;re giving audiences more control over what news they see -- and balancing audience choice with good old fashioned newspaper-like serendipity. [Download MP3] Loading Please Wait THE CURATORS AND THE CURATED. Page One star David Carr is incapable of not being entertaining on panels like this -- and here he&#39;s joined by Longform.org co-founder Max Linsky and MIT Futures of Entertainment fellow Maria Popova, whose proposed system for standardized attribution has been the talk of news orgs at SXSW. [Download MP3] Loading Please Wait BIG BUSINESS: THE FUTURE OF MARIJUANA JOURNALISM. Craigslist killed the classifieds and nearly took a bunch of newspapers with it. But in the wake of legalized medical marijuana in Colorado, our alt-weekly friends at the Denver Westword have stumbled onto an enormous, potentially industry-saving lifeline: pot ads. With a huge injection of weed money has come an impetus for high-minded coverage -- including the world&#39;s greatest job title, The Guy Who Smokes And Reviews Different Brands of Chronic. Here&#39;s what That Guy and That Newspaper have to say for themselves. [Download MP3]&nbsp; Loading Please Wait WHAT JOURNALISM CAN LEARN FROM SCIENCE. The Economist&#39;s Gideon Lichfield and NPR dBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicIf you&#39;re a journalist in the trenches, chances are you&#39;re too busy and too poor to attend (and your publisher is too poor to send you to) SXSW Interactive, the annual to-do where all the...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/eFRwCx7d-BM" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/822828.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/i5VV6M-kAoA/818170.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/818170.aspx Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:08:00 GMT no &nbsp; Last week, the inimitable John Hodgman (above, backstage) appeared at the Coolidge Corner Theatre to talk about his new book. (You can read my interview with him here.) It was epic. Ted Leo performed a mini concert,&nbsp;Hodgman orchestrated a&nbswww.thephoenix.com &nbsp; Last week, the inimitable John Hodgman (above, backstage) appeared at the Coolidge Corner Theatre to talk about his new book. (You can read my interview with him here.) It was epic. Ted Leo performed a mini concert,&nbsp;Hodgman orchestrated a&nbsp;script reading of an imaginary&nbsp;competitive hoarding reality show, and&nbsp;a young fella proposed to his girlfriend (she said yes!). Here are some pics -- scroll down for audio: . &nbsp; And here is the complete hour-and-a-little podcast, including mid-set interlude by Ted Leo: DOWNLOAD: John Hodgman &amp; Ted Leo, &quot;That Is All&quot; [mp3] Loading Please WaitBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academic&nbsp; Last week, the inimitable John Hodgman (above, backstage) appeared at the Coolidge Corner Theatre to talk about his new book. (You can read my interview with him here.) It was epic. Ted Leo...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/i5VV6M-kAoA" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/818170.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/IS1W4KIkuTM/817467.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/817467.aspx Tue, 08 Nov 2011 15:57:00 GMT no Joan Didion wore a purple scarf and her trademark oversized glasses last night at the sold-out Harvard Book Store-sponsored event at First Parish Church in Cambridge. She was in town to promote her new book, the heartbreaking “Blue Nights,” which concernwww.thephoenix.com Joan Didion wore a purple scarf and her trademark oversized glasses last night at the sold-out Harvard Book Store-sponsored event at First Parish Church in Cambridge. She was in town to promote her new book, the heartbreaking “Blue Nights,” which concerns the death of her daughter and which can, and likely will, be read as a macabre follow-up to 2005’s deeply affecting “The Year of Magical Thinking,” about the death of her husband. DOWNLOAD: Joan Didion interviewed by Chris Lydon, 2011 [mp3] LISTEN: Loading Please Wait The last few years have clearly weathered the famously precise writer, whose new book examines, in painfully raw, circular passages, her failings as a parent, her profound grief, and her own fading health. “I hear a new tone when acquaintances ask how I am, a tone I have not before noticed and find increasingly distressing, even humiliating: these acquaintances seem as they ask impatient, half concerned, half querulous, as if no longer interested in the answer. As if all too aware that the answer will be a complaint. I determine to speak, if asked how I am, only positively. I frame the cheerful response. What I believe to be a cheerful response as I frame it emerges, as I hear it, more in the nature of a whine. Do not whine, I write on an index card. Do not complain. Work harder. Spend more time alone. I push-pin the index card to the corkboard on which I collect notes.” Unflinchingly, Didion — who has always really been a journalist at heart, her curiosity her engine, her examinations of ’60s counterculture or Miami politics or Terry Schiavo reliably unflinching and often (mis)interpreted as cold — has become her own subject, creating a dark &quot;portrait of the artist&quot; in her twilight years. The book, in its repetitive logic, is a whirlpool; distressing and profound, even, in the way it asks question after terrible question: “What if I can never again locate the words that work?” she writes, every writer’s worst fear. She has never been interested in comfort, but she is obsessed with truth. Perhaps, then, the strangest result of these last two deeply personal books is that she, in pulling the curtain back on death and dying in all its messiness, seems to have earned a new following, a stricken readership misunderstanding her rawness, her honesty, as an interest in the mass-produced memoir’s typical streamlined arc ending, inevitably, in healing and hope. The moderator at last night’s event, Christopher Lydon, clearly aimed to fashion her losses into a story of buoyancy: Didion as the comeback kid. Tiny on stage, a little bewildered even, she politely took his compliments and resisted his agenda. “What would John [Didion’s deceased husband] say?” he asked oddly, at one point, regarding their daughter’s death and John’s Catholicism, wanting her to say something soothing, it seemed, about faith. She refused in what has obviously become her standard interview style: short, to the point; clarifying that John wasn’t devout, that he didn’t believe in anything. Her own agenda, it seems, is more simple. “There is no difference in my mind between writing for myself and writing for the public,” she said a bit later. She is not creating an offering, then, so much as doing what she’s always done: documenting, investigating. Her new status — as was evident by question after question about grief and loss in the hallowed church — as saint of the bereaved, seems to make her uncomfortable. “I don’t want to write any more memoirs,” the 76-year-old writer said, regarding what she’s working on next. “I would like to discover something....The whole interest in writing is to discover something you didn’t know.” Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicJoan Didion wore a purple scarf and her trademark oversized glasses last night at the sold-out Harvard Book Store-sponsored event at First Parish Church in Cambridge. She was in town to promote her...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/IS1W4KIkuTM" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/817467.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/swL_6z3buJc/816630.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/816630.aspx Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:26:00 GMT no Photo: BradKelly Photo via Flickr We&#39;re going to go out on a limb and bet that you&#39;ll never find yourself listening in on a conversation between these four people again. Thankfully, we&#39;ve got it on tape. So here it is: this year&#39;s &quot;Fwww.thephoenix.com Photo: BradKelly Photo via Flickr We&#39;re going to go out on a limb and bet that you&#39;ll never find yourself listening in on a conversation between these four people again. Thankfully, we&#39;ve got it on tape. So here it is: this year&#39;s &quot;Far Out Fiction&quot; event from the 2011 BOSTON BOOK FESTIVAL.&nbsp; Our own GENIE WILLIAMSON hosted Saturday&#39;s most talent-packed panel at Trinity Church. You&#39;ve got CHUCK KLOSTERMAN departing from non-fiction and giving you about $2.50 worth of his invisible-man novel The Visible Man. (Last week Klosterman discussed the book with Boston&#39;s own Steve Almond.) You also got KATE BEATON discussing her webcomic and collection Hark! A Vagrant! (Here she is being interviewed last week by slipstream superstar Kelly Link -- sense a theme?). New Yorker 20-under-40 star KAREN RUSSELL was there to talk about her debut novel Swamplandia! (Here&#39;s Genie&#39;s interview with her from last week.) And GREGORY MAGUIRE showed up empty-handed -- to talk about his soon-to-hit-the-bestseller-chart Out of Oz. Since it was in a church, the conversation inevitably strayed briefly to Catholicism. Also: alligators and depressing novels. Listen up:&nbsp; &nbsp; DOWNLOAD: &quot;Far Out Fiction: Chuck Klosterman, Gregory Maguire, Kate Beaton, Karen Russell&quot; [mp3]&nbsp; Loading Please Wait To subscribe to our podcast,&nbsp; paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast.&nbsp;Recorded October 15 in Trinity Church, Boston, as part of the 2011 Boston Book Festival. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicPhoto: BradKelly Photo via Flickr We&#39;re going to go out on a limb and bet that you&#39;ll never find yourself listening in on a conversation between these four people again. Thankfully,...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/swL_6z3buJc" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/816630.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/O96C1xFBsLI/816578.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/816578.aspx Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:36:00 GMT no There he was: DONNIE ANDREWS, whom most Wire-heads know as &quot;the real Omar.&quot; (Even bigger Wire-heads will tell you that Omar is a composite, but Andrews is the biggest contributor to the aggregate.) He was explaining the irony of how, before hiswww.thephoenix.com There he was: DONNIE ANDREWS, whom most Wire-heads know as &quot;the real Omar.&quot; (Even bigger Wire-heads will tell you that Omar is a composite, but Andrews is the biggest contributor to the aggregate.) He was explaining the irony of how, before his prison stint and conversion into a community activist, white women would clutch their handbags when he walked by. This, he exclaimed, was ludicrous. Donnie Andrews wasn&#39;t going to take their purse. &quot;I might stick a gun in your face,&quot; he smiled, to nervous laughter. But purse snatching? Come on. That&#39;s a difficult joke for the REV. EUGENE RIVERS to laugh at -- but Rivers, a founder of the Ten Point Coalition who has worked for several decades to end inner city gang violence, was the one who introduced this session by saying, &quot;We&#39;re gonna get it poppin&#39;.&quot;&nbsp; It&#39;s poppin&#39;, yall. And now -- for those of you who couldn&#39;t be at the Back Bay Events Center on Friday night for the kickoff event of the third annual BOSTON BOOK FESTIVAL -- we bring you the complete session of THE ART OF THE WIRE: A DISCUSSION WITH CAST AND CREATORS. Check it out below as ROBERT CHEW enacts what PROPOSITION JOE would think of Barack Obama, and JAMIE HECTOR explains the back-story he created for MARLO STANFIELD, and writer GEORGE PELECANOS admits they could&#39;ve done a better job portraying women characters, and FRAN BOYD -- the inspiration for David Simon&#39;s The Corner -- explains love and redemption, and POOT . . . well, TRAY CHANEY will tell you that Poot is just Poot.&nbsp; DOWNLOAD: &quot;The Art of The Wire: A Discussion with Cast and Creators&quot; [mp3] Loading Please Wait PREVIOUSLY: Podcast: The Wire&#39;s Kima, Bubbles, and Omar at Harvard&nbsp; | Interview: Robert &quot;Prop Joe&quot; Chew talks The Wire and Education Recorded Friday, October 14, 2011 at the Boston Book Festival. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicThere he was: DONNIE ANDREWS, whom most Wire-heads know as &quot;the real Omar.&quot; (Even bigger Wire-heads will tell you that Omar is a composite, but Andrews is the biggest contributor to the...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/O96C1xFBsLI" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/816578.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/DxlWHKdXTaw/774550.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/774550.aspx Mon, 29 Aug 2011 13:08:00 GMT no August means two things: &nbsp;it&#39;s ice cream weather, and Morrissey&#39;s just said something stupid. Okay, the latter isn&#39;t really dependent on the time of year, but it&#39;s still true. &nbsp;Equally true is how the Ben &amp; Jerry&#39;s truckwww.thephoenix.com August means two things: &nbsp;it&#39;s ice cream weather, and Morrissey&#39;s just said something stupid. Okay, the latter isn&#39;t really dependent on the time of year, but it&#39;s still true. &nbsp;Equally true is how the Ben &amp; Jerry&#39;s truck is spending the month inspiring childlike glee by dispensing free ice cream, so there&#39;s no better time to answer the dual burning questions &quot;What can Morrissey&#39;s unfiltered utterances teach me?&quot; and &quot;Man, how cool would it be to drive an ice cream truck?&quot; Rolling Stone contributing editor Rob Sheffield recently gave his insight into both of those matters at the Brookline Booksmith, where he read from his memoir Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: &nbsp;One Young Man&#39;s Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut. Sheffield said he idolizes Morrissey for the years The Smiths&#39; frontman spent crafting lyrics that provided his adolescent self with Mrs. Garrett-esque guidance--with the end result of &quot;making me a lamer, dumber, more miserable person.&quot; As a true fan, Sheffield feels there&#39;s a lesson to be learned from Morrissey&#39;s multiple media controversies. &quot;Part of what Morrissey&#39;s here to teach us is not to trust your heroes because saying stupid stuff is what they do,&quot; he said, &quot;and to take it all with a grain of salt, because heroes are, in addition to everything else they do, the people who say really stupid things. &nbsp;So in a way we have to thank Morrissey for that.&quot; Sheffield also shared recollections of the summer he spent as an ice-cream truck driver in Boston, which he called &quot;a great summer for completely mind-distorting delusions.&quot; &quot;I had visions of brunettes pulling crisply folded twenties out of their bikini tops with the command ‘Cool me off, Sugar Boy,&#39;&quot; he said. &nbsp;&quot;Instead, these visions gave way to a reality of sitting on the Southeast Expressway all day, munching ice cream sandwiches, slurping Mountain Dew, singing along to the radio, all to bring the Chipwhiches and Chocolate Whirls to the sweaty little children of my town.&quot; Lack of groupies aside, delivering ice cream to enthusiastic children still left Sheffield feeling like a rock star -- and not a minor one. The only comparable celebrity? Prince, circa Purple Rain. &quot;I felt like Prince could understand what I was going through,&quot; Sheffield said. &nbsp;&quot;We&#39;d have to hang out sometime. &nbsp;He could play me some tasty new tracks, and I maybe could serve him a Hoodsie.&quot; DOWNLOAD:&nbsp; Rob Sheffield at the Brookline Booksmith [MP3] Recorded live at the Brookline Booksmith on May 3, 2011; if you liked this, check out the Booksmith&#39;s events calendar. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. &nbsp; Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicAugust means two things: &nbsp;it&#39;s ice cream weather, and Morrissey&#39;s just said something stupid. Okay, the latter isn&#39;t really dependent on the time of year, but it&#39;s still true....<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/DxlWHKdXTaw" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/774550.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/Mxho_gjyeAk/772725.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/772725.aspx Thu, 04 Aug 2011 19:35:00 GMT no Author William Gibson has been called the father of cyberpunk and coined the term &quot;cyberspace&quot; back when Internet was little more than a twinkle in DARPA&#39;s eye. &nbsp;That&#39;s enough to mean that he&#39;s probably developed a fan base devwww.thephoenix.com Author William Gibson has been called the father of cyberpunk and coined the term &quot;cyberspace&quot; back when Internet was little more than a twinkle in DARPA&#39;s eye. &nbsp;That&#39;s enough to mean that he&#39;s probably developed a fan base devout enough to build shrines in his honor, or at least commemorative iPad apps. But if you ask Gibson himself -- like one audience member did during a Brookline Booksmith reading at the Coolidge Corner Theatre last year -- it still doesn&#39;t make him a celebrity. &nbsp;Literary acclaim aside, the author of Neuromancer and the rest of the dystopian Sprawl trilogy, said that as a writer, he gets &quot;only the most homeopathic dose of celebrity,&quot; a minimal form of fame that doesn&#39;t merit VIP treatment. &quot;You can&#39;t even get into the club,&quot; he joked. &nbsp;&quot;I could be there at the velvet rope for a long time, going, ‘but I&#39;m William Gibson!&#39;&quot; Speculative fiction fans won&#39;t have to worry about velvet ropes on Thursday, August 4, when Gibson will be acting at least a little famous at the Harvard Coop, signing books and reading from his most recent novel, Zero History. Update: Gibson&#39;s tour dates this week have been cancelled. It&#39;s not Gibson&#39;s first trip to the Boston area for such an event; at last year&#39;s Booksmith presentation, he read from &quot;Muskrats,&quot; chapter 13 in Zero History. In &quot;Muskrats,&quot; Milgrim, a recovering drug addict, and retired rock star Hollis Henry--characters from Gibson&#39;s 2007 novel Spook Country--primarily discuss fashion while snacking on croissants. &nbsp;Maybe not what you&#39;d expect from the guy known for his visionary writings on the information age, but in Zero History (which John Bowker reviewed after its release last fall), Gibson uses the fashion industry as a launch point for a high-tech adventure that begins with a secret denim brand and ultimately involves government conspiracies and corporate intrigue. While Gibson said he has no plans to start his own underground denim line in real life, he does intend to continue keeping an eye on how, exactly, people are interacting with increasingly advanced technology. &nbsp;Comparing his observation to that of an anthropologist, he said he finds it important to note how people actually use an item, regardless of its intended purpose. &nbsp;Consider the pager, a staple of every ‘90s drug dealer. &quot;The people who invented cellular pagers never imagine that cellular pagers would change the landscape of crime in America more radically than anything since the revolver,&quot; he said, &quot;but they did.&quot; Head to the Harvard Coop for more of Gibson&#39;s insights on fame, fashion and felonies, and don&#39;t forget to prep for the event &nbsp;by checking out our podcast. &nbsp;You could always just show up for the reading without listening in advance, but wouldn&#39;t Gibson be disappointed if you didn&#39;t take advantage of the pervasive technology? DOWNLOAD: William Gibson at the Coolidge Corner Theatre [MP3] Recorded live at the Coolidge Corner Theatre on September 22, 2010, courtesy of the Brookline Booksmith; if you liked this, check out the Booksmith&#39;s events calendar. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicAuthor William Gibson has been called the father of cyberpunk and coined the term &quot;cyberspace&quot; back when Internet was little more than a twinkle in DARPA&#39;s eye. &nbsp;That&#39;s...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/Mxho_gjyeAk" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/772725.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/Cm6tsP1K4Eo/772028.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/772028.aspx Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:44:00 GMT Ben Potrykus, live at SXSW There may be no bigger gluttons for punishment than touring musicians -- and as proof, monthly storytelling series/cringefest &quot;This Has Been A Disaster- Thanks For...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/Cm6tsP1K4Eo" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/772028.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/RKiuCX1Z31o/769240.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/769240.aspx Sat, 25 Jun 2011 13:09:00 GMT &quot;We are alarmingly unprepared for this,&quot; emcee Ryan Walsh announced to his audience on a Sunday night last month at Toad. As if to prove his point, co-host Steve Almond was still trying...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/RKiuCX1Z31o" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/769240.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/veVbUBnS2S4/725185.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/725185.aspx Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:29:00 GMT no GOOGLE ATTACKS! Scared? We are too. And so is author Siva Vaidhyanathan, who read from his recent release The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) at the Harvard Book Store earlier this afternoon. But if you happened to miss it -- or if ywww.thephoenix.com GOOGLE ATTACKS! Scared? We are too. And so is author Siva Vaidhyanathan, who read from his recent release The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) at the Harvard Book Store earlier this afternoon. But if you happened to miss it -- or if you walked out of there craving more, MORE -- we&#39;ve got just the ticket for you, pulled from our own bottomless podcast vault: two readings from similarly tech-wary authors Nicholas Carr (The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains) and William Powers (Hamlet&#39;s Blackberry): What in the hell has our digital world done to us? Without much of a choice, we&#39;ve all signed up for lives of obsessive connectivity; whether this is a good and necessary shift in lifestyle is the common query of both William Powers and Nicholas Carr&#39;s most recent books. Neither Luddite manifestos nor tech-nerd rhapsodies, they aim to question rather than condemn the way we use our gizmos, recognizing the benefits while weighing the costs. Part intellectual wayfaring, part memoir, Powers&#39; Hamlet&#39;s Blackberry searches for some solutions to the problem of information overkill, offering an everyday philosophy for our perennially plugged-in lives. To support his philosophy--which embraces the human need to connect, &quot;to answer the call of the crowd,&quot; as well as the opposite desire for time and space apart and &quot;unplugged&quot;--Powers plumbs the annals of history, uncovering a trove of ideas he sees as having helped ancient folk manage and enjoy their increasingly connected lifestyles. &quot;New technologies have always brought the mix of excitement and stress that we feel today,&quot; he says in the podcast. Taking full advantage of history&#39;s seminal thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, he maintains that that digital connectedness serves us best when it&#39;s balanced by its opposite: disconnectedness. (As an aside, perhaps the best part of this reading is the explanation of the title: Hamlet did in fact have a Blackberry -- or the Elizabethan equivalent, a little notebook with erasable &quot;pages,&quot; called a &quot;writing table.&quot;) Known for a more cautionary stance in relation to all this digitization, tech czar Nicholas Carr endeavored to understand the toll the Internet is taking on our smarts when he asked &quot;Is Google making us stupid?&quot; on the cover of a 2008 Atlantic Magazine. In his latest book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, he picks up where he left off, shedding light on a pressing debate of our time: As we continue to take advantage and push against the Internet&#39;s frontier, are we forgoing our ability to read and think deeply? Weaving insights from philosophy, neuroscience, and history, Carr explains how the Web is rerouting our neural pathways, replacing the subtle mind of the book reader with the distracted mind of the screen gazer. The book is a clarion call for caution, and an attempt to preserve the human capacity for prolonged thought and wisdom, citing, among other things, the Internet&#39;s proclivity for hyperlinks as having deleterious effects on honed reading and understanding. That said, both Powers and Carr acknowledge that it&#39;s neither possible nor preferable to rewind the progress of technology; they love their Google Alerts and video texts as much as the next guy--they just want to make sure we don&#39;t lose our precious minds in the process. Lucky for you, the tech-wizards-that-be haven&#39;t figured out how to put hyperlinks in podcasts yet, so have a listen and see what you think--that is, if you&#39;re still capable of engaging in a task for more than 45 seconds.DOWNLOAD: William Powers discusses Hamlet&#39;s Blackberry at the Harvard Book Store [MP3] DOWNLOAD: Nicolas Carr discusses The Shallows at the Harvard Book Store [MP3] Podcasts recorded live at the Harvard Book Store); if you, check out the Harvard Book Store&#39;s calendar of upcoming events. To subscribe toBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicGOOGLE ATTACKS! Scared? We are too. And so is author Siva Vaidhyanathan, who read from his recent release The Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) at the Harvard Book Store earlier...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/veVbUBnS2S4" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/725185.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/WJ8nbiPXlkE/719697.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/719697.aspx Mon, 31 Jan 2011 20:10:00 GMT no Dust off that VCR grandma gave you in &#39;82 and get ready for the VHS revival! Despite the 3D-IMAX-bells-and-whistles craze happening at your local 65 theatre movie-plex, hardcore videotape collectors are patrolling the web for hundred dollar copies ofwww.thephoenix.com Dust off that VCR grandma gave you in &#39;82 and get ready for the VHS revival! Despite the 3D-IMAX-bells-and-whistles craze happening at your local 65 theatre movie-plex, hardcore videotape collectors are patrolling the web for hundred dollar copies of grindhouse flicks you&#39;ve never even heard of. Why would these Luddites spend hard-earned recession-era dollars on obsolescence you may ask? As Michael Neel reveals in &quot;VHS is the new vinyl,&quot; a subculture of tapeheads thrives on the warbly sound, grained-out tracking lines, and nearly 50%-cropped image of home videotapes. These collectors take a near-scientific interest in preserving B-movies that would otherwise be lost in the DVD revolution, and relish in the nostalgia of watching movies the way they did when they were 12. The intentionally lo-fi viewing experience of VHS recalls a time past, when studios couldn&#39;t use high-end formats as a selling point for garbage films. Savvy new flicks are even getting retro-styled VHS promo releases! Why watch a movie any other way than the worst way possible? Check out Michael Neel on the WFNX Breakfast Show here: PODCAST: Horror filmmaker Michael Neel on &quot;VHS is the new vinyl&quot; [MP3] &gt;&gt;Don&#39;t forget to subscribe to the Laser Orgy RSS Feed!!&lt;&lt; &gt;&gt;Follow us on Twitter--&nbsp; Laser Orgy Tweet Feed !!&lt;&lt; And now, Laser Orgy presents a practical guide to embracing the VHS revival: Need advice picking out a piece of vintage home-theatre equipment? How about a 45 minute tour through some British guy&#39;s VHS horror collection? Honestly though, all these guys are just asking to be sweded. And somehow related, 7 hours of vacuum cleaner sounds. Perhaps my fantasy of a Laserdisc renaissance isn&#39;t so unlikely after all... Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicDust off that VCR grandma gave you in &#39;82 and get ready for the VHS revival! Despite the 3D-IMAX-bells-and-whistles craze happening at your local 65 theatre movie-plex, hardcore videotape...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/WJ8nbiPXlkE" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/719697.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/fZ2D2JAxr3M/706281.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/706281.aspx Tue, 16 Nov 2010 17:42:00 GMT no Here&#39;s a campaign shocker: RACHEL MADDOW is still not running for Scott Brown&#39;s seat. Apparently that full page Globe ad last year wasn&#39;t enough for the Huffington Post, the Boston Herald, and eight zillion blogs. It wasn&#39;t really true unwww.thephoenix.com Here&#39;s a campaign shocker: RACHEL MADDOW is still not running for Scott Brown&#39;s seat. Apparently that full page Globe ad last year wasn&#39;t enough for the Huffington Post, the Boston Herald, and eight zillion blogs. It wasn&#39;t really true until she showed up at Harvard on Sunday night and made an offhanded comment about&nbsp; it. OH, HEY, BY THE WAY: she also delivered the Theodore H. White Lecture on Politics and the Press, one of the most prestigious invitations at one of journalism&#39;s most hallowed institutions, the Shorenstein Center at Harvard. It was totally full of substance and stuff, which is probably why nobody reported on it. Missed it? There&#39;s the video, up there. Scroll down and you can grab the mp3 for your digital long-playing device of choice. &nbsp; One way of looking at Maddow&#39;s lecture last night is to consider it a rebuttal -- or a continuation of a rebuttal -- to Jon Stewart&#39;s criticism of MSNBC as an agent of political polarization, and to wider critiques of cable news. (You know what we think: why can&#39;t all those hot cable news anchors just get along?) Dressed in a black button-down shirt, black satin trousers, black hipster Adidas, and her trademark Buddy Holly glasses, Rachel looked and sounded less like a talk-show host than like a consummate rock and roll badass -- or maybe the outlaw who&#39;d come to take on the town sheriff. &quot;The country hates the press,&quot; she said, knowing that while the country had this figured out, the press had not universally come to embrace the totality of that statement. So she said it again -- &quot;Not some of it,&quot; she clarified. &quot;All of It.&quot; -- with the conviction, perhaps, of someone who has known at various times in her life what it is to be hated. With two brief turns of phrase, Maddow turned a blowtorch on the concept of objective journalism: &quot;Among those of us who are not political conscientious objectors,&quot; she said, presumably referring to herself and her MSNBC cohorts. &quot;Among those of us who do not hide or disown our points of view,&quot; she continued, casting the objective journalist as not merely a mainstream myth, nor even a (respectably?) conscientious objector, but perhaps a coward -- a creature of the closet. And Maddow, as was made clear in Alex Jones&#39;s introduction, and in the Q&amp;A that followed, is not so big a fan of closets.&nbsp; For good measure, Maddow called out onto the carpet the &quot;commentariat,&quot; a class of people which &quot;considers itself to be above political considerations of their own, who claim to agree with us only when we&#39;re right and to disagree with us only when we&#39;re wrong.&quot; Take that, CNN! And your little dog Blitzer, too! Far from seeing, in the mirror, a sign of some news-ish apocalypse, Maddow -- go figure -- sees the rise of her show and others like it as a profitable new way forward for journalism: &quot;Opinion driven media makes the money that politically neutral media loses,&quot; she said, flatly. Call it the Maddow Doctrine. She followed up by describing opinion media as not just a sustainable model but a &quot;gold mine.&quot; In my imagination, at least, dozens of daily newspaper reporters shifted uncomfortably in their seats and muttered something about &quot;rubbing it in.&quot; And there was something of the avenging angel in Maddow, a bit of the man in black. There are people who romanticize the old ways of doing things -- who lament the demise of a media mainstream -- but Maddow? Not so much. The old white guy sitting at the desk with a monopoly on the truth never quite did it for her, she said, and so she has a hard time identifying with the crybaby acts of old-media barons. &quot;Ted Koppel is never going to get to be Walter Cronkite,&quot; she said, with mock rue. &quot;Nobody is ever going to get to be Walter Cronkite.&quot; (Easy for her to say.) Probably not her fault, but Harvard&#39;s handlers prevented membeBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicHere&#39;s a campaign shocker: RACHEL MADDOW is still not running for Scott Brown&#39;s seat. Apparently that full page Globe ad last year wasn&#39;t enough for the Huffington Post, the Boston...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/fZ2D2JAxr3M" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/706281.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/Tt5z5hp23t4/703334.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/703334.aspx Wed, 03 Nov 2010 03:01:00 GMT &quot;What an amazing building,&quot; says DAVID RAKOFF, gazing around at the historic Trinity Church in Copley Square. &quot;I&#39;m going to besmirch it with filth.&quot;&nbsp; Thus began his...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/Tt5z5hp23t4" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/703334.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/hdehiLY4iZY/700598.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700598.aspx Fri, 29 Oct 2010 12:17:00 GMT NICK BILTON is one of the people we listen to most closely on tech. Now the Times&#39; lead technology writer, he&#39;s a veteran of New York Press (during that publication&#39;s golden years) and of...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/hdehiLY4iZY" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700598.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/zT13w7he3Tg/700606.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700606.aspx Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:24:00 GMT Every book festival needs legendary dudes like DENNIS LEHANE and TOM PERROTTA -- the kinds of authors whose stories are famous even to people who don&#39;t read books. The awesome thing about Lehane...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/zT13w7he3Tg" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700606.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/X1h2Ch8gYMo/700616.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700616.aspx Wed, 27 Oct 2010 12:36:00 GMT Neil Gaiman presumably could not be torn away from his young goth bride, and Joyce Carol Oates had already been hired to give the keynote. But the two most famous contributors to My Mother She Killed...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/X1h2Ch8gYMo" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700616.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/xM0U-ziJltw/700661.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700661.aspx Tue, 26 Oct 2010 18:54:00 GMT Inspiration is seldom as easy as it seems. One of the lessons of STEVEN JOHNSON&#39;s Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation is that &quot;Eureka!&quot; moments -- sudden...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/xM0U-ziJltw" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700661.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/WoVp__JJRlU/700583.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700583.aspx Sun, 24 Oct 2010 12:50:00 GMT This program was titled, optimistically, &quot;ISRAEL/PALESTINE: NOVEL APPROACHES.&quot; Alas, it turned into &quot;Israel/Palestine: Same Old Shit.&quot; Well, what did you expect? Put human...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/WoVp__JJRlU" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700583.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/KG9thIYZT2U/700204.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700204.aspx Fri, 22 Oct 2010 16:07:00 GMT It&#39;s pretty safe to say that no one makes monsters quite like director Guillermo Del Toro makes monsters. I mean, not only did the dude&#39;s imagination spit out the gorgeously grotesque fairy...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/KG9thIYZT2U" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/700204.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/1_mtQHF5WHg/699797.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/699797.aspx Wed, 20 Oct 2010 21:23:00 GMT As promised, the Boston Phoenix will be podcasting every panel from this year&#39;s second annual BOSTON BOOK FESTIVAL, yet another smashing success last weekend. (Don&#39;t take our word for it --...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/1_mtQHF5WHg" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/699797.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/MtymxLWE7zI/697725.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/697725.aspx Thu, 14 Oct 2010 13:28:00 GMT no As our city girds itself for the tsunami of book boosterism that&#39;s about to sweep Copley Square this weekend (to refresh your memory on just how incredible last year&#39;s Boston Book Fest was, check out our 2009 podcast archives), it seems like thiswww.thephoenix.com As our city girds itself for the tsunami of book boosterism that&#39;s about to sweep Copley Square this weekend (to refresh your memory on just how incredible last year&#39;s Boston Book Fest was, check out our 2009 podcast archives), it seems like this is the perfect opportunity to wax introspective on one of the greatest novels of all time. Harper Lee&#39;s To Kill a Mockingbird -- the reclusive author&#39;s first and only literary venture, the tale of a small-town lawyer&#39;s struggle to reconcile racial climate with legal justice in the American Deep South -- is just as captivating as it was in 1960. July 11, 2010, marked the beloved book&#39;s 50th year on the bookshelves worldwide. And to celebrate, the Harvard Book Store hosted a panel discussion and screening of the 1962 film adaptation at the Brattle Theatre. The panel included historian and essayist John Summers, Boston Globe columnist and National Book Award finalist Joan Wickersham, and Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy. The panelists expounded on the historical, literary, and legal aspects of TKAM, weighing in on everything from the fishbowl mentality of Maycomb County to the linguistic skills of the book&#39;s young narrator, Scout. &quot;We must not forget that this is a book for adolescents,&quot; Summers pointed out, &quot;observed by a second grade girl who speaks with perfect diction, uses words like ‘lineaments,&#39; and can see through the evils of the Dewey Decimal System.&quot; However, Wickersham noted, it&#39;s this sort of informed innocence that makes the book a piece of truly great writing. &quot;She [Harper Lee] kept the voice fresh with the child,&quot; Wickersham said. &quot;But there&#39;s also this kind of adult consciousness.&quot; DOWNLOAD: 50th Anniversary To Kill A Mockingbird panel &nbsp;[MP3] Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, on July 14, 2010 (courtesy of the Harvard Book Store); if you enjoyed this listening to this talk, check out the Harvard Book Store&#39;s calendar of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast.&nbsp; Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicAs our city girds itself for the tsunami of book boosterism that&#39;s about to sweep Copley Square this weekend (to refresh your memory on just how incredible last year&#39;s Boston Book Fest was,...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/MtymxLWE7zI" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/697725.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/AFUxC8u8-N0/694229.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/694229.aspx Mon, 27 Sep 2010 13:06:00 GMT no video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo playerFriendship is a tough thing to capture. Especially in words. But friendship is even harder to capture in time. It&#39;s an oft-lamented fact that we here in this world are confined to a linear planwww.thephoenix.com video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo playerFriendship is a tough thing to capture. Especially in words. But friendship is even harder to capture in time. It&#39;s an oft-lamented fact that we here in this world are confined to a linear plane. The fleeting nature of the present, the looming figure of the future, and the unattainable haze of the past characterize our mortal tenure. Everything gets older, and everything dies. In her new book, Let&#39;s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship (recently reviewed for the Phoenix by Amy Finch), author and Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Gail Caldwell manages to do the former, while facing the harsh realities of the latter. Let&#39;s Take the Long Way Home tells the story of Caldwell&#39;s relationship with former Phoenix columnist and best-selling author Caroline Knapp. Before succumbing to lung cancer in 2002, Knapp penned the &quot;Out There&quot; column for the Phoenix along with pieces on being a twin, her struggle with anorexia, and other deeply personal topics. She is perhaps most widely known for her 1996 bestseller, Drinking: A Love Story, in which she detailed her life as a functioning alcoholic. READ: A selection of Caroline Knapp articles from the Phoenix&#39;s archives In Let&#39;s Take the Long Way Home, Caldwell mourns for her friend, and paints a delicate portrait of grieving and remembrance. &quot;I had very naively assumed that grief was sadness times 12. That it was just great sorrow,&quot; Caldwell said during a reading at the Harvard Book Store. But what Caldwell found after losing her best friend was a wholly unexpected physical anguish, a longing for the romanticized grief that is just &quot;a lot of tears and missing somebody.&quot; The crowd gathered at the Harvard Book Store, not all that far from Knapp&#39;s childhood home in Cambridge, consisted of many people who knew her personally. Caldwell read selected excerpts from Let&#39;s Take the Long Way Home and answered questions about Caroline, their dogs, and how writing this book played into coping with her death. To hear the full reading and Q+A session, check out our podcast below. And to see Caldwell in person, she&#39;ll be speaking at Newtonville Books on Wednesday, September 29, at 7pm. DOWNLOAD: Gail Caldwell reading from &quot;Let&#39;s Take the Long Way Home&quot; [MP3] Recorded live at the Harvard Book Store, on August 12, 2010; if you enjoyed this listening to this talk, check out the Harvard Book Store&#39;s calendar of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicvideo platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo playerFriendship is a tough thing to capture. Especially in words. But friendship is even harder to capture in time. It&#39;s an oft-lamented...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/AFUxC8u8-N0" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/694229.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/w1VFRsOUq5U/688656.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/688656.aspx Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:25:00 GMT no We here at Laser Orgy consider ourselves experts on the behavior of nerds on the internet, not least because we ourselves are nerds on the internet. So when we saw the collective shackles raised in response to Peter Keough&#39;s review of the &quot;dork-www.thephoenix.com We here at Laser Orgy consider ourselves experts on the behavior of nerds on the internet, not least because we ourselves are nerds on the internet. So when we saw the collective shackles raised in response to Peter Keough&#39;s review of the &quot;dork-pandering&quot; film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, we felt compelled to respond. In this episode of Laser Tag -- the first-ever podcast by the Laser Orgy staff -- we ask whether it is acceptable for film critics to review the audience. We talk about comic book adaptations that displeased both fans and non-fans (Watchmen), as well as films that seemed to please everyone (The Dark Knight). We ask whether Scott Pilgrim would have brought in the big bucks at the box office had the film included less dork-pandering. And Ryan and I admit, unashamed, that we laughed at Scott Pilgrim&#39;s dork-pandering jokes. LISTEN: Laser Tag: Scott Pilgrim vs. Peter Keough (mp3)The podcast&#39;s cast: Carly Carioli, Ryan Stewart, Maddy Myers, and Shaula Clark. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicWe here at Laser Orgy consider ourselves experts on the behavior of nerds on the internet, not least because we ourselves are nerds on the internet. So when we saw the collective shackles raised in...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/w1VFRsOUq5U" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/688656.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/Usz9DZBqAgY/686433.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/686433.aspx Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:39:00 GMT no &nbsp; A typical day in the life of Jason Schwartzman probably includes cocktails by the pool in the Coppola Compound. Cousin Sofia&#39;s boyfriend just might pop in and serenade him with a Phoenix song on the acoustic guitar. Then Kristen Dunst swings bwww.thephoenix.com &nbsp; A typical day in the life of Jason Schwartzman probably includes cocktails by the pool in the Coppola Compound. Cousin Sofia&#39;s boyfriend just might pop in and serenade him with a Phoenix song on the acoustic guitar. Then Kristen Dunst swings by and they go for a swim, and Wes Anderson shows up with his model train set, and Jarvis Cocker is there and they start playing together, and so&#39;s Gwennyth and she starts singing too, but she&#39;s fucking unbearable, so Uncle Francis&nbsp;busts it up by regaling them with stories&nbsp;about that one time he and James Caan drove to Tijuana,&nbsp;and then everyone laughs and there&#39;s wine and pink champagne and bubbles, lots and lots of bubbles. You try getting this tableau out of your head the next time you sit across from Jason Schwartzman. I couldn&#39;t, and I was embarrassingly star struck. Here&#39;s your opportunity to hear him hold forth about his encyclopediac knowledge of 90s rock and hear him sing The Toadies&#39; 1994 classic, Possum Kingdom. Oh yeah, and Anna Kendrick was there, too. She&#39;s pretty. LISTEN: Anna Kendrick and Jason Schwartzman talk about acting and Incubus (mp3) &nbsp;Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academic&nbsp; A typical day in the life of Jason Schwartzman probably includes cocktails by the pool in the Coppola Compound. Cousin Sofia&#39;s boyfriend just might pop in and serenade him with a Phoenix...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/Usz9DZBqAgY" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/686433.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/ZfxVltzR94k/686039.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/686039.aspx Tue, 10 Aug 2010 18:33:00 GMT no It&#39;s no exaggeration to say that last weekend could go down as the most memorable few days in Boston hip-hop history (especially if you count the cherry-topping Public Enemy shebang at House of Blues last night). On Friday, Slaine shot the video for www.thephoenix.com It&#39;s no exaggeration to say that last weekend could go down as the most memorable few days in Boston hip-hop history (especially if you count the cherry-topping Public Enemy shebang at House of Blues last night). On Friday, Slaine shot the video for &quot;99 Bottles&quot; at a sold-out show at Church; on Saturday, M-Dot and Wiz Khalifa rocked for thousands on Government Center; and for three straight days and nights b-boys and b-girls from across the planet battled in the Floorlords-hosted United Styles 6, and celebrated the hometown crew&#39;s 29th anniversary. For me, the crowing moment of it all came on Friday afternoon, when I got to interview Crazy Legs at Fourth Wall after screening the truly remarkable documentary &quot;Bouncing Cats.&quot; The film is about his trip to Africa, where, along with Ugandan b-boy and humanitarian Abramz (who is now down with Rock Steady), he brings hope to thousands of young people through breaking. To say that &quot;Bouncing Cats&quot; was powerful and tear-provoking is an understatement; I honestly still can&#39;t scrub some of the images from my mind. If you missed the screening, then be sure to catch the film when it hits theaters and/or DVD. Until then, I hope you enjoy this half-hour Q&amp;A with Crazy Legs. Just be prepared for some real talk; like he says: &quot;Life is not an episode of Beat Street.&quot; DOWNLOAD: Crazy Legs on &quot;Bouncing Cats&quot; [MP3]Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicIt&#39;s no exaggeration to say that last weekend could go down as the most memorable few days in Boston hip-hop history (especially if you count the cherry-topping Public Enemy shebang at House of...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/ZfxVltzR94k" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/686039.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/80xF5mVWQAg/683522.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/683522.aspx Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:00:00 GMT no &nbsp; Author Bret Easton Ellis didn&#39;t ask to be turned into a hot, sexy myth. &nbsp;But he&#39;s not exactly complaining about it, either. &quot;It&#39;s so interesting to see how the myth takes over,&quot; he told a Brattle Theatre audience, in reswww.thephoenix.com &nbsp; Author Bret Easton Ellis didn&#39;t ask to be turned into a hot, sexy myth. &nbsp;But he&#39;s not exactly complaining about it, either. &quot;It&#39;s so interesting to see how the myth takes over,&quot; he told a Brattle Theatre audience, in response to a question about &nbsp;how it felt to be &nbsp;&quot;young and hot&quot; when he first tasted literary success. &quot;I&#39;m constantly amused by it, this myth of Bret Easton Ellis.&quot; Then he added, slyly: &quot;So yeah, it was really fun. I had a really good time being hot and young and sexy. It was awesome. I loved it.&quot; Ellis hit the Brattle as part of a tour to promote his new novel, Imperial Bedrooms (which Carrie Battan reviewed in this week&#39;s Phoenix). He read an excerpt form the novel, then answered questions about his writing process, the film adaptations of his previous books, and the stardom that came with his career. Ellis was only 21 when he published his first novel, Less Than Zero, in 1985. When it started to gain popularity, he was still finishing up his studies at Bennington College in Vermont. From then on, he was tagged as a member of the so-called literary &quot;Brat Pack&quot; of the 1980s, which included novelist Jay McInerney, among others. &quot;Everyone likes to think that I was hanging out with Jay McInerney, and we were doing tons of blow all the time, and that we were passing out at night clubs,&quot; &nbsp;Ellis explained, trying to set the record straight about the persona that has been attached to him. &quot;And I might have been doing all that, but it was with my friends. It wasn&#39;t with Jay McInerney. &quot; Imperial Bedrooms is a sequel to Less Than Zero that finds the characters 25 years removed from the events of Ellis&#39;s debut novel. The Less Than Zero character Clay steps in as the narrator for Imperial Bedrooms, and, in a meta sleight of hand, Clay criticizes the way he was portrayed in Less Than Zero. Ellis said that Imperial Bedrooms is the &quot;real Clay&#39;s&#39; attempt to make a claim for himself.&quot; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ellis said that his narrator&#39;s backlash against popularized versions of his story stems from Ellis&#39;s own dissatisfaction with film adaptations of his books, a subject he spoke a good deal about at the Brattle. Audience members also peppered Ellis with questions about his M.O. as a writer, and Ellis set all joking aside when asked where he draws inspiration from: &quot;Pain,&quot; Ellis says. &quot;That&#39;s where the inspiration comes from. My own pain. A lot of it stems from confusion and being upset by something and trying to figure out why I am upset by this, and why is this bothering me, and why I&#39;m obsessed with it.&quot; To get more glimpses into Ellis&#39;s psyche, check out our podcast, in which he talks about the misguided novel he wrote at age 14, the writers that have influenced his style over the years, and his chilling first encounter with Christian Bale before the making of the American Psycho movie. DOWNLOAD: Bret Easton Ellis, on &quot;Imperial Bedrooms&quot; [MP3] Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, on June 24, 2010, courtesy of the Harvard Book Store; if you enjoyed this listening to this talk, check out the Harvard Book Store&#39;s calendar of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academic&nbsp; Author Bret Easton Ellis didn&#39;t ask to be turned into a hot, sexy myth. &nbsp;But he&#39;s not exactly complaining about it, either. &quot;It&#39;s so interesting to see how the myth...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/80xF5mVWQAg" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/683522.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/-LXeGGplSdA/677809.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/677809.aspx Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:15:00 GMT no VIDEO: Silversun Pickups, &quot;Lazy Eye&quot; SILVERSUN PICKUPS headlined the big outdoor stage at the WFNX CLAMBAKE this past weekend, and were quite clearly up to the task. Below, we have a bunch more video, plus photos and audio of WFNX&#39;s interviwww.thephoenix.com VIDEO: Silversun Pickups, &quot;Lazy Eye&quot; SILVERSUN PICKUPS headlined the big outdoor stage at the WFNX CLAMBAKE this past weekend, and were quite clearly up to the task. Below, we have a bunch more video, plus photos and audio of WFNX&#39;s interview with the band. VIDEO: Silversun Pickups, &quot;Panic Switch&quot; VIDEO: Silversun Pickups, &quot;It&#39;s Nice To Know You Work Alone&quot; VIDEO: Silversun Pickups, &quot;Future Foe Scenario&quot; VIDEO: Silversun Pickups, &quot;Catch and Release&quot; PHOTOS: More from Derek Kouyoumjian. INTERVIEW: WFNX interview Silversun Pickups (mp3) &nbsp;Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicVIDEO: Silversun Pickups, &quot;Lazy Eye&quot; SILVERSUN PICKUPS headlined the big outdoor stage at the WFNX CLAMBAKE this past weekend, and were quite clearly up to the task. Below, we have a bunch...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/-LXeGGplSdA" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/677809.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/GZHF6zIAtik/677751.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/677751.aspx Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:34:00 GMT no Trailer for Junger&#39;s documentary &quot;Restrepo&quot; Juan Restrepo&#39;s job was to save lives. He wasn&#39;t able to save his own. His brothers weren&#39;t able to, either. The U.S. Army medic was shot in the throat in Afghanistan, and tragically &www.thephoenix.com Trailer for Junger&#39;s documentary &quot;Restrepo&quot; Juan Restrepo&#39;s job was to save lives. He wasn&#39;t able to save his own. His brothers weren&#39;t able to, either. The U.S. Army medic was shot in the throat in Afghanistan, and tragically &quot;bled out trying to tell the men around him how to save his life,&quot; recounts Sebastian Junger. &quot;They couldn&#39;t do it. It destroyed those guys.&quot; The outpost later named after Restrepo in Afghanistan&#39;s hellish Korengal Valley became the setting for both Junger&#39;s newest book, War, and his documentary, Restrepo, which won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance in January. (Read Peter Keough&#39;s interview with Junger here, and his review of Restrepo here.) War follows the 173rd Airborne Brigade at Restrepo over 2007 and 2008, when Junger joined them as an embedded reporter. At his June 7 Brattle Theatre appearance, the journalist and The Perfect Storm author spoke about what war in the Middle East really means to the guys fighting it. Junger said War looks at the psychological and emotional experience of the soldiers: young men plucked from America and thrown into a hell where the daily grind was defined by sudden firefights and continuous flirtation with death, and punctuated by devastating loss. But Junger reports that the most dominating force at Restrepo was the brotherhood that fused the men together. With their entire existence immersed in war, soldiers became indispensable to one another&#39;s survival. They came to be needed constantly, and under higher stakes than they would ever face at home. The platoon was so devastated by Juan Restrepo&#39;s death not because it epitomized the danger they faced daily, but because it was a time when they were needed and failed to deliver. And this galvanizing agent of brotherhood didn&#39;t just keep the men alive. Junger says it caused some of them to prefer life in one of the world&#39;s deadliest locales to life in America. Junger mentioned a soldier named Brendan who, after returning to the U.S., was asked if he missed anything about Restrepo. &quot;And Brendan said, &#39;Yeah, I miss almost all of it,&#39; &quot; Junger recalled. The War passages Junger read offered other sometimes painful, sometimes amusing glimpses into the psyches of those on the frontline. For example, Junger reflects on the gallows humor that pervaded soldiers&#39; conversation: &quot;One pair of friends had a serious agreement that if one of them should die, the other would erase all of the porn on his laptop before the army could ship it back to his mom.&quot;&nbsp; DOWNLOAD: Sebastian Junger discusses War and Restrepo [MP3] Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, on June 7, 2010, courtesy of the Harvard Book Store; if you enjoyed this listening to this talk, check out the Harvard Book Store&#39;s calendar of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast.Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicTrailer for Junger&#39;s documentary &quot;Restrepo&quot; Juan Restrepo&#39;s job was to save lives. He wasn&#39;t able to save his own. His brothers weren&#39;t able to, either. The U.S. Army...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/GZHF6zIAtik" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/677751.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/Z5VXbcpvVG4/675350.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/675350.aspx Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:53:00 GMT noFolks, we have a special Father&#39;s Day treat for you all -- an exclusive podcast of Nick Flynn reading from his new book, The Ticking Is the Bomb. Enjoy. Nick Flynn reads to daughter Maeve (courtesy of the WW Norton Flickr gallery) For a guy who&#39;s www.thephoenix.comFolks, we have a special Father&#39;s Day treat for you all -- an exclusive podcast of Nick Flynn reading from his new book, The Ticking Is the Bomb. Enjoy. Nick Flynn reads to daughter Maeve (courtesy of the WW Norton Flickr gallery) For a guy who&#39;s had enough arduous life experience to fill up two memoirs with heavy questions about fatherhood, alcohol abuse, homelessness, suicide, and torture, Nick Flynn seems to keep in remarkably good spirits, if the playful banter he struck up with the crowd during a recent book reading is any indicator. The author of 2004&#39;s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which is mostly about his relationship (or lack thereof) with an alcoholic criminal of a father, Flynn weaves his internal struggles into grander political explorations, primarily those of Bush-era war atrocities in his new memoir, The Ticking Is the Bomb. Not exactly light subject matter by any standards, but Flynn continually finds a way to maintain a sense of zen in his frank presentation of both personal and universal horrors. The daily meditation he practiced while writing the book probably helped out. &quot;I felt like I was writing from a place of obsession in some ways [with Another Bullshit Night in Suck City],&quot; Flynn explained to the crowd during his reading at Berklee&#39;s 939 Cafe back in January. &quot;And I said, &#39;I want to write this new one from a meditative place&#39; ... I ended up figuring out that if I wanted to do that, that meant I had to meditate. So I meditated for like two years, every day for half an hour in the middle of writing this book.&quot; Routine meditation didn&#39;t stifle the Scituate-born Flynn&#39;s penchant for literal and figurative map-hopping in his storytelling, however: The Ticking Is the Bomb, in a series of vignettes, touches on everything from infant CPR training prior to the birth of his daughter, to a stint in Istanbul documenting the experiences of Iraqi detainees, as Flynn takes &quot;a hard look at the dark and dangerous world into which his daughter would soon be born&quot; (in the words of former Phoenix staffer Mike Miliard, who profiled Flynn earlier this year). &quot;Some of the days you are given will be spent in a strange city,&quot; Flynn read from his book, &quot;And at the end of the day, you will know that you have spoken to no one except the girl you got your coffee from.&quot; Skipping from vignette to vignette at 939, Flynn joked about his memoir-writing ADHD in his new book. &quot;So you&#39;re probably all getting a pretty good sense of what the book&#39;s about at this point,&quot; he teased after reading two seemingly unrelated passages. &quot;On skipping around: I think you&#39;d have more satisfaction if you read it front to back ... but you can just open it up to any page, I guess.&quot; DOWNLOAD: Nick Flynn reads from &quot;The Ticking Is the Bomb&quot; [MP3] Recorded live at Cafe 939, on January 20, 2010. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast.Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicFolks, we have a special Father&#39;s Day treat for you all -- an exclusive podcast of Nick Flynn reading from his new book, The Ticking Is the Bomb. Enjoy. Nick Flynn reads to daughter Maeve...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/Z5VXbcpvVG4" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/675350.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/PjinajetCwk/671382.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/671382.aspx Wed, 02 Jun 2010 11:00:00 GMT no There&#39;s nothing that anyone reading this post could&#39;ve done to prevent the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Someone (or a group of someones) with a lot of responsibility fucked up, finger pointing ensued, and in all actuality, people may bwww.thephoenix.com There&#39;s nothing that anyone reading this post could&#39;ve done to prevent the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Someone (or a group of someones) with a lot of responsibility fucked up, finger pointing ensued, and in all actuality, people may be better served saving their breath. The irrevocable damage has been done and one of the richest ecosystems on our increasingly faltering planet is now tainted beyond repair. But while environmentalist Bill McKibben was visibly perturbed by the massive blunder during his April 30 stop at the Brattle Theatre, he is realistic in his assessment that it was not the spill that has doomed the Gulf, but rather, ramifications of capitalism that have long set in motion the demise of that ecosystem. Offshore drilling has been killing the area for decades and the spill is just the slick icing on the cake. McKibben uses the incident as a teaching point to let us in on a bleak little secret that also happens to be the basis of his new book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet -- we can no longer wait around for our planet to fall apart to begin making repairs because it&#39;s falling apart now. And is probably already beyond repair. But while Al Gore aims for the masses in his pleads for reform and more often than not falls upon deaf ears, McKibben&#39;s target audience isn&#39;t the skeptics. He isn&#39;t out to convert the 44% of Americans who still don&#39;t believe global warming is man-made. Rather, he aims to motivate immediate action amongst those who may not be aware of the dire circumstances, with his primary channel being 350.org. Founded in 2007 as an avenue for assembly around the ultimate goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, the grassroots movement has generated a resounding response thus far, organizing the world&#39;s &quot;most widespread day of political action&quot; on Oct. 24 of last year across 181 countries. During this podcast that was recorded during his Brattle appearance, McKibben reads a passage from Eaarth, questions the motivation behind the decisions of those we generally refer to as leaders, and fields 20-minutes of questions from an audience that is seemingly divided between those who think 350.org can make a difference and those who don&#39;t. DOWNLOAD: Bill McKibben on &quot;Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet&quot; [MP3] Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, on April 30, 2010; if you enjoyed this listening to this talk, check out the Brattle Theatre&#39;s calendar of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicThere&#39;s nothing that anyone reading this post could&#39;ve done to prevent the recent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Someone (or a group of someones) with a lot of responsibility fucked up,...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/PjinajetCwk" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/671382.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/2PU6BpHXqmQ/664068.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/664068.aspx Sat, 08 May 2010 11:00:00 GMT John Heilemann and Mark Halperin discuss &quot;Game Change&quot; In the 19 months since the 2008 election, our nation&#39;s political landscape has taken quite the dramatic turn. The Democrats...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/2PU6BpHXqmQ" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/664068.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/nrlbkThZwB8/662960.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/662960.aspx Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:52:00 GMT no Ray Kurzweil -- the guy who developed the world&#39;s first computer speech recognition programs, among about a billion other things -- has some pretty extraordinary predictions for what technology might soon be able to do for the human body. &quot;Like www.thephoenix.com Ray Kurzweil -- the guy who developed the world&#39;s first computer speech recognition programs, among about a billion other things -- has some pretty extraordinary predictions for what technology might soon be able to do for the human body. &quot;Like telling your cells they can let a few calories slide here and there.&quot;We don&#39;t need to hold onto every damn calorie,&quot; he told us. &quot;I&#39;d like to be able to ... tell my fat cells, don&#39;t worry, I&#39;ll have food tomorrow, you don&#39;t have to hold onto every calorie.&quot; Kurzweil, who once said he&#39;d like to be able to build a copy of his late father using his DNA from the grave site, is the centerpiece of our cover story this week. We&#39;ve got his hour-long interview available for download as a web-exclusive complement to the written piece. If you&#39;ve already read Chris Faraone&#39;s Kurzweil story (and you bloody well should, if you want to find out more about how we&#39;re all going to have nanobots swimming through our innards 30 years from now), some of this will sound familiar, as a number of the quotes from the chat have been woven in. But there&#39;s plenty to take away from the full interview, regardless of whether or not you&#39;ve read the story. If anything, listening to Kurzweil -- whose predictions are usually pretty spot-on (he was talking about e-books in 1992) -- will help you realize just how quickly the world can and does transform. &quot;Think back three or four years ago. People weren&#39;t using social networks. Facebook started in 2004, 2005, as a little dorm project to help Harvard undergraduates meet freshman girls to date, and that&#39;s how they explained it,&quot; he said. &quot;10 years ago most people didnt use search engines ... the world changes very quickly.&quot; DOWNLOAD: Ray Kurzweil interview with the Phoenix [MP3] &nbsp; Interview recorded live by the Boston Phoenix; for more, read Chris Faraone&#39;s profile of Ray Kurzweil &quot;Is Genius Immortal?&quot;. To subscribe to this podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast.&nbsp; Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicRay Kurzweil -- the guy who developed the world&#39;s first computer speech recognition programs, among about a billion other things -- has some pretty extraordinary predictions for what technology...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/nrlbkThZwB8" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/662960.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/f7p-OJkZKIY/662877.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/662877.aspx Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:40:00 GMT no BALDWIN AT HARVARD: On sleeping with JFK The email didn&#39;t go out of its way to explain itself. ALEC BALDWIN, appearing at the fabled JFK Forum at Harvard University&#39;s storied Kennedy School of Government, as a guest of the Institute of Politics. www.thephoenix.com BALDWIN AT HARVARD: On sleeping with JFK The email didn&#39;t go out of its way to explain itself. ALEC BALDWIN, appearing at the fabled JFK Forum at Harvard University&#39;s storied Kennedy School of Government, as a guest of the Institute of Politics. In conversation with no less an interlocutor than New York Times National Editor RICK BERKE (who admitted to staying up late the night before to watch It&#39;s Complicated on DVD). But a conversation about what, exactly? And why? Turns out, a little bit of everything: about half politics and half entertainment, with plenty of crossover between the two. As for the why, well, Baldwin was pressed to specify his political ambitions, and while he demurred, someone reading between the lines would&#39;ve come away convinced that he&#39;d really like to be the United States Senator from New York someday.&nbsp; That was, however, the least entertaining thread in an evening that provided plenty to Twitter about. We&#39;re surprised the Right hasn&#39;t erected a monument yet to Baldwin&#39;s description of SCOTT BROWN as &quot;Kennedy-esque,&quot; especially seeing as that remark was delivered on a chair paid for by the Kennedys, by a man who was about to sleep in JFK&#39;s old dorm room (see the teaser clip above). Baldwin predictably -- but entertainingly, and smartly -- teed off on SARAH PALIN and ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER. But he also gave a smack to HUFFINGTON POST (where he&#39;s been an occasional contributor) for turning into &quot;US Weekly.&quot; Best part might have been the questioner who demands, towards the end of the Q&amp;A, that JACK DONAGHY give his best advice to Harvard&#39;s graduating seniors. Below: the full hour-plus barrel of Baldwin, in podcast-quality mp3. Below that: some excerpts via Flipcam -- excuse the occasional camera shake, which is evidence of your humble camerman losing his shit. And also excuse the weird sync issues -- YouTube&#39;s being a bitch at the moment. DOWNLOAD: Alec Baldwin at Harvard&#39;s Kennedy School of Government, April 28, 2010 [mp3] Recorded live at the Harvard Institute of Politics on Wednesday, April 28, 2010. For a schedule of upcoming John F. Kennedy Forum events, see their website. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast&nbsp; Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicBALDWIN AT HARVARD: On sleeping with JFK The email didn&#39;t go out of its way to explain itself. ALEC BALDWIN, appearing at the fabled JFK Forum at Harvard University&#39;s storied Kennedy School...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/f7p-OJkZKIY" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/662877.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/YB0R6T4DVGU/661095.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/661095.aspx Thu, 22 Apr 2010 20:54:00 GMT no Marisa Meltzer shows off her zines There probably aren’t a ton of high school girls in America scrawling the word “slut” and “rape” down their arms and across their stomachs as a proud political statement, or joining all-girl punk bands in throngs and puwww.thephoenix.com Marisa Meltzer shows off her zines There probably aren’t a ton of high school girls in America scrawling the word “slut” and “rape” down their arms and across their stomachs as a proud political statement, or joining all-girl punk bands in throngs and putting on DIY basement shows. It’s a big stretch to say that the early-’90s riot grrrl movement, or its cornerstone feminist ideals, are resurfacing with any force. Still, alongside the waves of denim jackets, the DVD release of MTV’s Daria and the reinstatement of the Sarah McLachlan-founded Lilith Fair, the recent mass unearthing of semi-subterranean &#39;90s culture has caused – or at least coincided with – bits of renewed interest in the emblems of riot grrrl, propelled in part by one of its poster children, Kathleen Hanna. &nbsp; Hanna, Bikini Kill’s frontwoman, announced in January that she’d bestow her own riot grrrl relics – namely ‘zines – to NYU’s Fales Library to kickstart the acquisition of materials for its new Riot Grrrl Collection. Then she called on Bikini Kill fans to e-mail her a “reaction to a song we wrote, something weird that happened at one of our shows, a personal anecdote or just WHATEVER” to be posted on a new Bikini Kill archives blog, which prompted a small horde of her readers to summon and submit their riot grrrl nostalgia.&nbsp; Nearly 20 years since its birth, riot grrrlhood has become a story that&#39;s once again ripe for the telling, sans the buzzworthiness and media exploitation that its key players loathed. Living in the same building as Hanna during her years as a college student in Olympia, Washington, was writer and feminist Marisa Meltzer. Meltzer, coauthor of the 2007 How Sassy Changed My Life (Faber and Faber), has taken her experience as a front-row spectator and participant in riot grrrl as a chance to dovetail a ’90s fetish with an archival look at women in modern rock &#39;n&#39; roll with her new book, Girl Power (Faber and Faber). In spite of Meltzer’s fanatically extensive knowledge of all things riot grrrl, she uses the movement merely as a starting point in Girl Power before delving into a chronological discussion of everything that succeeded it. After explaining the scene in Olympia in the early &#39;90s and laying down the basics of riot grrrl, she touches upon the paradoxical career of Courtney Love, the ways in which Fiona Apple’s sulky sexuality were “incredibly alluring” and how die-hard third wave feminists could never really get in ideological sync with the original Lilith Fair in its heyday, citing herself as an example at her reading at the Brookline Booksmith back in February. &quot;I was not excited about it [the Lilith Fair] at all when I was a college student, when it originally came out,&quot; Meltzer said. &quot;I thought I was just better than it, really. I thought it was kind of lame and like, vaginal or something ... An interviewer in Salon asked me my feelings about it, and I said that it was like vagina music, and at that time, I was like, into cunt music. But now ... I see that the Lilith Fair did a lot of good.&quot; In the book’s final chapter, Meltzer uses the 2008 Spice Girl reunion tour as a way to bring the chronicle full circle and try to connect the dots of today’s female pop musicians with those of riot grrrl’s glory days. “I can see how pining for the Spice Girls of all things seems like nostalgia at its worst, but their concert felt like one night where girls could be strong and frivolous and free to wear lip gloss and bare their midriffs and no one was overthinking it,” she read at the Booksmith. “It surely wasn’t feminism in action – there were certainly no political agendas being pushed or community organizing being done, and I’m sure Posh’s spindly thighs were doing nothing for anyone’s body issues – but it was thousands of girls in one place simply celebrating the state of being a girl.” There are a lot of passages in Girl Power that progress like this -- passages that try to reconcile tepBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicMarisa Meltzer shows off her zines There probably aren’t a ton of high school girls in America scrawling the word “slut” and “rape” down their arms and across their stomachs as a proud political...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/YB0R6T4DVGU" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/661095.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/SLJzCKK99ZM/654523.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/654523.aspx Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:47:00 GMT no Seth Grahame-Smith speaks at the Brattle Theatre Ever wonder why Honest Abe always wore that tall stovepipe hat? All the better to conceal his wooden vampire-killing stake, my dear. In his most recent book, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter,&nbsp;criticallwww.thephoenix.com Seth Grahame-Smith speaks at the Brattle Theatre Ever wonder why Honest Abe always wore that tall stovepipe hat? All the better to conceal his wooden vampire-killing stake, my dear. In his most recent book, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter,&nbsp;critically acclaimed author Seth Grahame-Smith recounts the &quot;true story&quot; of our nation&#39;s 16th president. Grahame-Smith, who first made his literary mark with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, sheds new light on the man history has long painted as the benevolent savior of the Union. In a recent talk at the Brattle Theatre, Grahame-Smith talked about a Lincoln you might not be as familiar with -- one whose campaign for equal human rights included the ruthless slaying of the undead. Vampires as allegory for bloodthirsty slave-owners? Somehow, it works. Through entries of Lincoln&#39;s &quot;previously undiscovered journals,&quot; Grahame-Smith constructs a world in which the Civil War stems from some bad blood (!) between Lincoln and a vamp that murdered his mother. Lincoln subsequently wages war against the vampires and the slaveowners with whom they are in league... note that both parties &quot;feed&quot; upon the blood and lives of the weak. &nbsp;Lest you think that the novel (which Tim Burton is adapting for screen) is little more than B-movie shtick legitimized by some haphazardly employed historical facts, hear this: Grahame-Smith knows his stuff. The author is clearly both a horror purist and a bona fide Lincoln buff. In his talk, he cites The Shining, the original Night of the Living Dead and The Exorcist among his favorite horror movies and recalls being a Stephen King &quot;fanatic&quot; as a young boy. And Grahame-Smith&#39;s fusion of supernatural gore and actual historical accounts results in a ripping yarn that, at the very least, is good enough for Doris Kearns Goodwin. Goodwin told him that she thought his book was &quot;tremendous fun&quot; and that Lincoln himself would have enjoyed it -- high praise from a Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential historian.&nbsp;&nbsp;Tune in to hear about the author&#39;s reverence for Abraham Lincoln, his personal writing process, and Lincoln&#39;s unlikely affinity for Edgar Allan Poe (who, apparently, would like to be a vampire himself). Also in the talk: pot-shots at MTV and the Twilight franchise, penis jokes, the stink of writers&#39; rooms, John Wilkes Booth compared to Tom Cruise (zing!), and how awesome it would be to see Will Smith play Mr. Darcy onscreen. No, really.&nbsp;&nbsp;In search of more literary-mashup thrills? Stop by the Harvard COOP tonight at 7pm for a &quot;Nerd Fun-Boston-Interactive Literary Duel,&quot; where fans will pit readings from Jane Austen&#39;s Pride and Prejudice&nbsp;against excerpts from Grahame-Smith&#39;s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies in a war of the words. &nbsp;DOWNLOAD: Seth Grahame-Smith on &quot;Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter&quot; [MP3]&nbsp;Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, courtesy of the Harvard COOP, on March 8, 2010; if you enjoyed this reading, check out the COOP&#39;s schedule of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast.&nbsp; Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicSeth Grahame-Smith speaks at the Brattle Theatre Ever wonder why Honest Abe always wore that tall stovepipe hat? All the better to conceal his wooden vampire-killing stake, my dear. In his most...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/SLJzCKK99ZM" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/654523.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/ea7uIhi4sQo/654003.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/654003.aspx Tue, 23 Mar 2010 11:00:00 GMT The advancement of modern medicine owes a great deal to a sharp pelvic pain felt by a Southern black woman in 1951. This pang, followed by a self-examination in a bathtub and a trip to Johns Hopkins,...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/ea7uIhi4sQo" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/654003.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/ooZN7EZyLJA/651159.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/651159.aspx Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:04:00 GMT no &nbsp; As DEVAL PATRICK gears up for the fight of his political life, Boston Phoenix Executive Editor PETER KADZIS and political reporter DAVID BERNSTEIN sat down for an hour-long conversation to let Patrick make his case for why he deserves four more yewww.thephoenix.com &nbsp; As DEVAL PATRICK gears up for the fight of his political life, Boston Phoenix Executive Editor PETER KADZIS and political reporter DAVID BERNSTEIN sat down for an hour-long conversation to let Patrick make his case for why he deserves four more years as Governor of Massachusetts. It was surprising on several levels. Not least of which is this: given the faux-pas-filled first months of his governorship, his list of accomplishments is wonkishly impressive. And, given the political hand-to-hand combat that&#39;s sure to follow, we were surprised that Patrick refused to take the bait and bash his soon-to-be-competition -- or even take a swipe at the stubborn state legislature. Maybe he flet it was too early in the cycle to acknowledge the existence of his Republican challengers. (Or maybe he was saving it for his health-care sneak attack, which came days later.) And yes, he still needs the legislature to send him bills that will, if passed, become part of his re-election stump speech. But his refusal to make cheap excuses, and his focus on the diligent, deliberate dispense of duty, was a reminder that for all his shortcomings as a PR machine, the governor has been a keen and effective manager of the state during an historically disasterous economic downturn. &quot;I knew that money would be tight. I did not anticipate a global economic collapse,&quot; he said, by way of an introduction. &quot;I knew that change would be hard. I didn&#39;t expect that to do some of the change we would end up in hand to hand combat&nbsp; with our friends.&quot; You&#39;ll hear a lot of soundbites over the next six months, so before the shit starts flying, here&#39;s an hour of real talk about real issues and real policy. If you&#39;re into that sort of thing.&nbsp; PODCAST: Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick: The Boston Phoenix interview [mp3] [SEE ALSO] FULL PODCAST TRANSCRIPT: Interview: Governor Deval Patrick NEWS ANALYSIS: &quot;Patrick&#39;s power of positive thinking&quot; by David BernsteinOPINION | THE PHOENIX EDITORIAL: The paradox of Deval Patrick Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academic&nbsp; As DEVAL PATRICK gears up for the fight of his political life, Boston Phoenix Executive Editor PETER KADZIS and political reporter DAVID BERNSTEIN sat down for an hour-long conversation to let...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/ooZN7EZyLJA" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/651159.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/i-fhazJpQPs/648200.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/648200.aspx Thu, 25 Feb 2010 12:35:00 GMT no Match made in heaven: JOHN WATERS, he the maker of Pink Flamingos, and RONI HORN, she&nbsp;the maker of such inscrutibly beautiful but maddeningly evasive Objects as Pink Tons.&nbsp; Even Waters has a hard time getting what Horn is after at first look --www.thephoenix.com Match made in heaven: JOHN WATERS, he the maker of Pink Flamingos, and RONI HORN, she&nbsp;the maker of such inscrutibly beautiful but maddeningly evasive Objects as Pink Tons.&nbsp; Even Waters has a hard time getting what Horn is after at first look -- and, as he pointed out last week, that&#39;s the damn point. We thank our stars that the ICA BOSTON picked Waters as Horn&#39;s interlocutor -- we doubt anyone less flamboyant, off-the-dome amusing, unabashedly curious, and ultimately fearless could have done as impressive a job. Waters, so often thumbnailed as America&#39;s curator of bad taste, simply has taste. Having decided that Horn&#39;s gold-leaf mats are exquisite, he dives in and begins interrogating her like a journalist, then embellishes her answers with gossipy asides and zingy one-liners. Give John Waters an opportunity to riff on Pink Tons -- the world&#39;s biggest piece of cast glass -- and he will not disappoint. Can he maybe stick around and hang out at the ICA full-time? You&#39;ll notice in the podcast that they&#39;re speaking about works without naming them -- Waters was projecting a slideshow onto a screen -- and to help you keep up, we&#39;ve lined up as many of them as we could find, in something approaching the order in which they are discussed. (We couldn&#39;t find images of her slashing, minimalist red drawings, sorry.) Spoiler alert: Waters posts nudez of Horn at the end.&nbsp; Greg Cook reviews Roni Horn aka Roni Horn in our current issue. The exhibit is on view through June 13 at ICA Boston.&nbsp; PODCAST: Roni Horn interviewed by John Waters at ICA Boston [mp3]&nbsp; Roni Horn Images from This is Me, This is You&nbsp;1998-2000; Courtesy Hauser and Wirth, Zurich ©&nbsp;the artist. Things Which Happen Again (For a Here and a There), 1988, installation view facing north Photo: Aimée Reed Roni Horn, a.k.a. (detail), 2008 - 2009, Ink jet prints on rag paper, 30 paired photographs Ed. of 5 each 43.2 x 38.1 cm&nbsp; / 17&nbsp; x 15&nbsp; inches&nbsp; (framed), Courtesy of the artist and Hauser &amp; Wirth © Roni Horn Installation view of Roni Horn aka Roni Horn at the ICA/Boston. Foreground: Roni Horn, 1988/2001, Solid forged stainless steel, Diameter 12–12 3/4 in. (30.5–32.4 cm), Private collection. Background: Roni Horn,White Dickinson, SCIENCE IS VERY NEAR US—I FOUND A MEGATHERIUM ON MY STRAWBERRY, 2006, Aluminum and solid cast plastic, 2 x 2 x 128 in. (5.1 x 5.1 x 325 cm), Collection of Jennifer Stockman; Roni Horn, White Dickinson, NATURE IS SO SUDDEN SHE MAKES US ALL ANTIQUE—, 2006/2007, Aluminum and solid cast plastic, 2 x 2 x 90 in. (5.1 x 5.1 x 205.7 cm), Glenstone, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser &amp; Wirth © Roni Horn. Photo: John Kennard Roni Horn, You are the Weather (detail), 1995, Gelatin silver prints and chromogenic prints, 16 of 17 sets, Each 10 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. (26.7 x 21.6 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Hauser &amp; Wirth ©&nbsp;Roni Horn &nbsp; Installation view of Roni Horn aka Roni Horn at the ICA/Boston. Foreground: Roni Horn, Paired Gold Mats, for Ross and Felix, 1994-1995, Two pure gold mats, Each 1/1000 x 60 x 49 in. (.002 x 152.4 x 124.5 cm), The Art Institute of Chicago. Background: Roni Horn, Ant Farm, 1974/2007, Mahogany, glass, earth, and ants, 47 x 70 x 4 in. (119.4 x 177.8 x 10.2 cm), Courtesy of the artist and Hauser &amp; Wirth © Roni Horn, Photo: John Kennard &nbsp;Roni Horn This Is Me, This is You, 1998-2000, 96 Chromogenic prints, 12 ¼ x 10 ¼ inches each, Courtesy of the artist and Hauser &amp; Wirth © Roni Horn &nbsp; &nbsp; Portrait of an Image (with Isabelle Huppert) &nbsp;2005 Courtesy Hauser and Wirth Zurich ©&nbsp;the artist 100 photographs in twenty sequences of five 38 x 31.75cm each Detail from &quot;Cabinet of,&quot; 2001 Roni Horn, Untitled (Aretha),2002-2004, Solid cast glass, 15 x 30 x 30 in. (38.1 x 76.2 x 76.2 cm), Museum of Modern Art, New York; Courtesy of the artist and Hauser &amp; Wirth © Roni Horn. Photo: John Kennard &nbsp;Pink Tons, 20Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicMatch made in heaven: JOHN WATERS, he the maker of Pink Flamingos, and RONI HORN, she&nbsp;the maker of such inscrutibly beautiful but maddeningly evasive Objects as Pink Tons.&nbsp; Even Waters...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/i-fhazJpQPs" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/648200.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/AfNuj3aTZNs/647670.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/647670.aspx Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:55:00 GMT no Everyone&#39;s familiar with the dreaded palm-to-forehead feeling you get when a minuscule misstep leads to some larger disaster. Locked your keys in the car, forgot to feed the fish, didn&#39;t properly set your alarm clock on the day of your big intervwww.thephoenix.com Everyone&#39;s familiar with the dreaded palm-to-forehead feeling you get when a minuscule misstep leads to some larger disaster. Locked your keys in the car, forgot to feed the fish, didn&#39;t properly set your alarm clock on the day of your big interview. We&#39;ve all been there and have faced the shameful realization that if we had just slowed our roll, these little catastrophes could have been avoided. Now, magnify the stakes of your blunder a thousandfold. Performing open-heart surgery? Crash-landing US Airways Flight 1549? Thwarting the attempts of an underpants terrorist? No room for error. Last month, local surgeon and author Atul Gawande gave a talk at the Brattle Theatre (sponsored by the Phoenix Best-poll-nominated Harvard Book Store) focused on his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, in which he offered advice on, uh, how to get things right in high-pressure situations. Included in this podcast is Gawande&#39;s discussion and subsequent Q&amp;A session championing the world&#39;s most basic organizational tool: the checklist. According to Gawande there is no task too menial or, more significantly, too grand that cannot be perfected with the aid of a checklist -- including the seemingly miraculous resuscitation of a near-fatally drowned young girl. Recently, Gawande has garnered recognition as an aggressive critic in the ongoing push for healthcare reform, using his New Yorker articles to explore the factors driving the inflated costs crushing so many American families. Gawande continues his Checklist promotion on February 25 at Newtonville Books (also currently in the running for Best Book Store). That event&#39;s already sold out, but there&#39;s yet more Gawande on the horizon: the author will be taking part in the free Price Lecture series at Trinity Church on Feb. 28. DOWNLOAD: Atul Gawande on &quot;The Checklist Manifesto&quot; [MP3] Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, on January 7, 2010; if you liked this lecture, check out the Harvard Book Store&#39;s schedule of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicEveryone&#39;s familiar with the dreaded palm-to-forehead feeling you get when a minuscule misstep leads to some larger disaster. Locked your keys in the car, forgot to feed the fish, didn&#39;t...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/AfNuj3aTZNs" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/647670.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/ra57bCF4YrM/646275.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/646275.aspx Wed, 10 Feb 2010 23:00:00 GMT &nbsp; As you&#39;ve no doubt noticed from last week&#39;s Oscar announcements, The Hurt Locker&#39;s blown up in a big way since its initial release last summer, reaping honors for best director,...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/ra57bCF4YrM" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/646275.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/WcrVu-z1cmQ/643311.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/643311.aspx Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:00:00 GMT no In a few short hours, we&#39;ll all find out whether Rosanne Cash will take home a Grammy for &quot;Sea of Heartbreak,&quot; her duet with Bruce Springsteen off The List (an album inspired by a compilation of essential songs her father, Johnny Cash, gavewww.thephoenix.com In a few short hours, we&#39;ll all find out whether Rosanne Cash will take home a Grammy for &quot;Sea of Heartbreak,&quot; her duet with Bruce Springsteen off The List (an album inspired by a compilation of essential songs her father, Johnny Cash, gave to her when she was 18). But you don&#39;t have to wait any time at all to get a behind-the-scenes peek at not only The List, but also Rosanne&#39;s brain itself -- from her actual physical neural functioning, to her thoughts on Sting&#39;s tantric sex practices -- by listening to our podcast of &quot;Music on My Brain,&quot; Cash&#39;s tune-filled talk with neuroscientist Daniel Levitin at the Museum of Science a few months ago.&nbsp;&nbsp; The loins of Sting were a mere brief pit stop for the conversational wanderings of Cash and Levitin, whose scientific proclivities generally steered the discussion. Levitin is a former music producer worked with the likes of Blue Öyster Cult, Chris Isaak, Steely Dan, and Stevie Wonder, but found that his obsession with music fueled a curiosity that couldn&#39;t be satisfied astride a sound board. An erstwhile MIT and Berklee student (he dropped out to focus on his music career), Levitin left the record business to study neuroscience at Stanford under cognitive psychologist Roger Shepard. This life transformation led Levitin to write his acclaimed book This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (which got raves from none other than Oliver Sacks, who has a pretty good handle on this neuroscience-of-music thing himself). So what did these two talk about? Here are some highlights: -Levitin gets cosmic about the difference between music and visual art (&quot;Music is manifest across time, while paintings are manifest across space&quot;). -Cash gets cosmic about her fondness for minor chords (&quot;I am defined by minor chords. My life has been spent in pursuit of an A minor chord&quot;). -You liked that Pachelbel&#39;s Canon thing? Then don&#39;t skip the part where Levitin makes the connection between &quot;Heart &amp; Soul,&quot; Elvis Presley&#39;s &quot;Blue Moon,&quot; and a little classical ditty from the year 1650. -Prompted by the audience Q&amp;A period near the end, Cash talks about her own recent brain surgery, in which a tumor was removed from her cerebellum. Her description of the recovery process would be right at home in any Oliver Sacks book, as it took her an entire year to return to her full musical capacity. (She jokes: &quot;But I also dreamed that I had a bunch of doctors hitting me on the head with shovels, and I checked that out, and he [her doctor] said that definitely didn&#39;t happen.&quot;) DOWNLOAD: &quot;Music on My Brain,&quot; with Rosanne Cash and Daniel Levitin [MP3] Recorded live at the Museum of Science, on October 21, 2009; if you liked this lecture, check out the MoS&#39;s schedule of upcoming events. To subscribe to our podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicIn a few short hours, we&#39;ll all find out whether Rosanne Cash will take home a Grammy for &quot;Sea of Heartbreak,&quot; her duet with Bruce Springsteen off The List (an album inspired by a...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/WcrVu-z1cmQ" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/643311.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/2kEyqibbk10/641374.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/641374.aspx Wed, 27 Jan 2010 23:27:00 GMT no &quot;[P]eople think that I live in this Bavarian castle and sleep upside down in the fucking rafters, and fly around the gantry every night,&quot; Ozzy Osbourne told Phoenix editor Lance Gould over the phone a few days ago. Instead, judging from their lwww.thephoenix.com &quot;[P]eople think that I live in this Bavarian castle and sleep upside down in the fucking rafters, and fly around the gantry every night,&quot; Ozzy Osbourne told Phoenix editor Lance Gould over the phone a few days ago. Instead, judging from their little tête-à-tête last week about Osbourne&#39;s latest autobiography, I Am Ozzy (written with an assist from journalist Chris Ayres), he might have more in common with Frank McCourt and Monty Python than Count Dracula. Perhaps less unexpected is his professed kinship to Spinal Tap: &quot;[W]hen I saw Spinal Tap, I didn&#39;t think it was funny at all. I&#39;ve lost myself on my way to the stage. It was like a documentary to me.&quot; And speaking of actual spinal taps, turns out Ozzy has a special fondness for the Bean -- and its top-notch hospitals. According to the new book, he&#39;s come here twice to treat serious medical issues. Quoth Ozz: &quot;Well, Boston&#39;s always been a great town of mine. They love my music, I love playing in Boston. ... And the doctors there are the best.&quot; You can read the full transcript of the interview here, or hear the whole thing from the Ozz Man himself: DOWNLOAD: Ozzy Osbourne, on I Am Ozzy [MP3] To subscribe to this podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academic&quot;[P]eople think that I live in this Bavarian castle and sleep upside down in the fucking rafters, and fly around the gantry every night,&quot; Ozzy Osbourne told Phoenix editor Lance Gould over...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/2kEyqibbk10" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/641374.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/enGUTpZUKdA/639895.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/639895.aspx Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:31:00 GMT no Happy 201st birthday, EAP. Considering that the man was the original architect of the detective story -- that&#39;d be The Murders in the Rue Morgue -- it’s only fitting that we celebrate the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe with a riddle. Which city can righwww.thephoenix.com Happy 201st birthday, EAP. Considering that the man was the original architect of the detective story -- that&#39;d be The Murders in the Rue Morgue -- it’s only fitting that we celebrate the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe with a riddle. Which city can rightfully claim the legacy of Poe: Baltimore, Philadelphia, or Boston? Before we go any further, we&#39;d like to own up to the fact that we&#39;ve missed Poe&#39;s birthday by two whole days. But, hey, in our defense, if the Poe Toaster -- the mysterious entity who&#39;s been leaving roses and cognac on Poe&#39;s grave since 1949 -- can be egregiously late, so can we. (At least, we&#39;re hoping the Toaster&#39;s just running late, rather than something more serious.) Anyway, back to Poe and scholarly jingoism. Most of us have long grown accustomed to associating Poe with Baltimore, where he died of an undetermined illness in 1849 (the most colorful explanation is that he was a victim of cooping, an act of voting fraud so corrupt, it makes ACORN look classy). But, according to some EAP fiends, his death is where B-more&#39;s hold on Poe ends. At the Great Poe Debate, a marvelously peevish literary scrum held this past December at the Boston Public Library, distinguished Poe experts lobbed a barrage of analytical bombs at each other to fight for their respective cities&#39; entitlement to the man&#39;s genius. Our combatants: #1: Taking Philadelphia&#39;s side is Edward Pettit, “the Philly Poe guy,” who argues that the city served as &quot;the crucible for Poe&#39;s imaginative genius.&quot; One wouldn’t ordinarily point to the City of Brotherly Love as the obvious paragon of Poesy, but Pettit -- the man who got this whole debate show on the road in the first place -- makes the not-totally-unconvincing point that Poe kicked off a literary tradition of “Philadelphia gothic,” and that it was Philly that inspired some of the writer&#39;s greatest works … by being a filthy, roiling cauldron of crime, poverty, and disease. (Hey, if the shoe fits.) Oh, and let&#39;s not overlook the fact that Poe belongs to the city because it&#39;s the law. &nbsp;#2: Paul Lewis, curator of the BPL&#39;s current Poe exhibit and a professor of English at Boston College, took perhaps the most underdog position: that Boston is especially deserving of top-of-the-heap status when it comes to Poe. For while our fair city may have received a fair amount of Edgar&#39;s bile, &quot;we never put [him] in jail here in Boston, we never knocked him down, we never cheated him out of a poetry award that he legitimately won&quot; (unlike Philly) or ransacked his grave like Baltimore did. Moreover, Poe had deep ties to the Bean: he was born here; he came back here when he needed cash; and he was apparently so emotionally attached to this city, he even tried commit suicide here. And now we have a square named after him. So there. #3: Jeff Jerome, curator of the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum since 1978 (and personal witness of the Poe Toaster&#39;s annual rounds), held Baltimore&#39;s ground. And he did an admirable job of it, despite the other two challengers&#39; best efforts to rhetorically brick him up, &quot;Cask of Amontillado&quot;-style. Jerome also left himself wide open for a few good-natured barbs like this one from feisty debate moderator Charlie Pierce: &quot;I think we can all agree, when we think of being buried alive, we think of Baltimore.&quot; So who won? You’ll have to listen to the end, where a &quot;surprise guest judge&quot; declares the victor … sort of. (Like the rest of the debate, the finale is rather astonishing -- do not miss.) Then go check out the corresponding Poe exhibit at the BPL, on view through March 31. DOWNLOAD: “The Great Poe Debate” [MP3] Recorded live at the Boston Public Library, on December 17, 2009. To subscribe to this podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicHappy 201st birthday, EAP. Considering that the man was the original architect of the detective story -- that&#39;d be The Murders in the Rue Morgue -- it’s only fitting that we celebrate the...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/enGUTpZUKdA" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/639895.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/G5IxAEYEZz8/639202.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/639202.aspx Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:14:00 GMT The Phoenix&#39;s DAVID BERNSTEIN will be all over your radio dial today, feeding us the inside dope on the Coakley/Brown race. Follow his updates on the TALKING POLITICS blog, on FACEBOOK, and on...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/G5IxAEYEZz8" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/639202.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/roSAKErlB5w/637693.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/637693.aspx Thu, 14 Jan 2010 13:22:00 GMT no In 2009, we got used to seeing angry mobs descend on public forums with vengeance in their hearts. So for anyone who&#39;d been to a town-hall forum on health care, the scene at Boston&#39;s Old South Church on January 5 was eerily familiar -- an older awww.thephoenix.com In 2009, we got used to seeing angry mobs descend on public forums with vengeance in their hearts. So for anyone who&#39;d been to a town-hall forum on health care, the scene at Boston&#39;s Old South Church on January 5 was eerily familiar -- an older audience, larger than you&#39;d expect (the organizers put it at 400-plus), venting its collective spleen at hapless bureaucrats.&nbsp; What was different -- and remarkable -- is that the issue was classical music on the radio, and the object of the audience&#39;s ire was public broadcaster WGBH. Only in Boston.&nbsp; In case you haven&#39;t been following Boston&#39;s biggest radio-format drama since the demise of WBCN, here&#39;s the time line. At the beginning of December, WGBH took formal possession of Boston&#39;s only all-classical radio station, WCRB, after having bought the station for a reported $14 million. WCRB remains all-classical, but WGBH has eliminated the classical music it had been airing from 9 am to 4 pm on weekdays in favor of more news shows. Boston listeners thus have less classical music on the air than they did before. WGBH&#39;s not altogether unreasonable reply is that if it hadn&#39;t bought WCRB, listeners wouldn&#39;t have even what they do now, since the station was up for sale and no other bidder was proposing to run it as a classical-music station. But that&#39;s only the beginning of the dissatisfaction. WGBH has a 100,000-watt transmitter in Milton; the WCRB transmitter is only 27,000 watts, and it&#39;s way up in Lowell. Many WGBH listeners, especially those south of Boston, can&#39;t get WCRB at all. And some of those who can feel that what they&#39;re hearing has been dumbed down. (On the other hand, some regular WCRB listeners feel that their station is now too pointy-headed.) Everyone, moreover, is up in arms over WGBH&#39;s announcement that it is discontinuing its long-running live broadcasts of the Boston Symphony Orchestra&#39;s Friday-afternoon concerts. The result was this public forum organized by the Boston Music Intelligencer, a blog covering Boston&#39;s classical-music scene that&#39;s written by local musicians, musicologists, and academics. No less than former State Senate president William Bulger presided over a panel comprising public-broadcasting star Chris Lydon, former WCRB general manager Dave MacNeill, former Boston Globe critic Richard Dyer, and WGBH general manger John Voci. Voci figured to be the sacrificial lamb, and indeed he did himself few favors with the audience, which lined up and nailed him to the wall for a solid hour after the formal panel discussion had ended. He explained that there&#39;s no practical way to increase WCRB&#39;s signal strength -- and no one was able to refute him on that. He suggested that disenfranchised WGBH listeners could buy HD radios -- a &quot;solution&quot; that would have gone down better had it been offered with more sympathy and less arrogance. (Why couldn&#39;t WGBH offer HD radios instead of Andrea Bocelli box sets at pledge time?) And he was peculiarly resistant to the universal plea for the restoration of the Friday-afternoon BSO broadcasts, saying it would cost $20,000 or $30,000 that the station doesn&#39;t have. (How hard would it be to get a bank, say, to underwrite those broadcasts?) The Intelligencer pronounced the event &quot;a great success,&quot; which it was, if the goal was a mass public venting. In terms of altering the course of WGBH&#39;s actions, the meeting was somewhat less successful. There is, however, an ongoing grassroots campaign to lobby WGBH on behalf of that signature issue of restoring the Friday broadcasts -- and the audience has been joined by what you&#39;d think would be a powerful special-interest group: the BSO&#39;s own musicians. For those who couldn&#39;t make the meeting, then, we present a very-nearly-complete* recording of the proceedings, with thanks to the Boston Music Intelligencer. Click on the file below to listen, or right-click Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicIn 2009, we got used to seeing angry mobs descend on public forums with vengeance in their hearts. So for anyone who&#39;d been to a town-hall forum on health care, the scene at Boston&#39;s Old...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/roSAKErlB5w" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/637693.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/ZJDmSdz2xxc/637328.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/637328.aspx Sat, 09 Jan 2010 19:27:00 GMT no America&#39;s Test Kitchen blooper reel Chris Kimball knows all. Or, at least, he knows way too much about the strange and deviant culinary flailings going on in America&#39;s kitchens. In addition to spurning traditional ad-revenue model and staying aflwww.thephoenix.com America&#39;s Test Kitchen blooper reel Chris Kimball knows all. Or, at least, he knows way too much about the strange and deviant culinary flailings going on in America&#39;s kitchens. In addition to spurning traditional ad-revenue model and staying afloat thanks to subscriber dollars, Kimball&#39;s magazines and PBS TV shows -- Cook&#39;s Illustrated, Cook&#39;s Country, and America&#39;s Test Kitchen -- rely on reader/viewer polling to determine what recipes Kimball&#39;s crew will be exhaustively researching and scientifically supercharging in their top-secret Brookline Village lab. (For any Food Network lovers who are unfamiliar with ATK, it&#39;s basically Good Eats without the cartoon sound effects and giant Styrofoam prop models of yeast vacuoles -- but sometimes they make Kimball wear wacky hats.) Considering that it takes ATK months to refine their recipes, they wanna make sure their audience will be enthusiastic about them. But sometimes the comment cards reveal a bit too much of the dark side of home cooking. For instance: -Nobody seems to know whether chickens have one breast or two ... although there are plenty of people who would vehemently defend the two-breast position. To which we respond: Yikes. -Most people&#39;s knives are about as sharp as Tara Reid. -The most popular ATK recipe of all time: green bean casserole. Who says this is the United States of Arugula? -And what does America do with the recipes Kimball &amp; Co. so painstakingly prepare? In his words: &quot;You never follow them. EVER.&quot; In one particularly egregious case of kitchen improvisation, an ATK fan decided to tenderize her pork cutlet by backing over it in her SUV. So much for standard operating procedure. Currently, a new season of America&#39;s Test Kitchen, as well as the less science-y/more folksy Cook&#39;s Country, is upon us. Back in December, Kimball and his crack team -- ATK editorial director/supertaster Jack Bishop, test cook/recipe developer Bridget Lancaster, Equipment Corner guru Adam Ried, and ATK books division senior editor Julia Collin Davison -- took to the Brattle Theatre stage to plug their new material with a &quot;sizzle reel&quot; demo. They prefaced that with a 40-minute chat in which they reveal the inner workings of their own kitchens (which involve a lot of pork, fudge, and fire), hand out advice to newbie cooks, and relive their favorite horror stories, while Kimball expounds on the death of Gourmet magazine and the folly of giving away free stuff on the internet. (Like this podcast.) Oh, and jonesing for an ATK iPhone app? The answer, they tell us, is &quot;February.&quot; DOWNLOAD: America&#39;s Test Kitchen panel at the Brattle Theatre [MP3] Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, courtesy of the Harvard Book Store, on December 7, 2009. To subscribe to this podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicAmerica&#39;s Test Kitchen blooper reel Chris Kimball knows all. Or, at least, he knows way too much about the strange and deviant culinary flailings going on in America&#39;s kitchens. In...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/ZJDmSdz2xxc" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/637328.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/v9nolwieosY/636662.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/636662.aspx Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:46:00 GMT no From the looks of things, a lot of you folks intend to make 2010 the Year of More Writing. Need a little inspiration to help you battle the blank page? Well, we can&#39;t help you with that one -- but maybe these local authors can, as they reveal their twww.thephoenix.com From the looks of things, a lot of you folks intend to make 2010 the Year of More Writing. Need a little inspiration to help you battle the blank page? Well, we can&#39;t help you with that one -- but maybe these local authors can, as they reveal their thoughts on the writing process, and give us a glimpse of the forces that shaped their work. (For you impatient, just-get-to-the-audio-already types, scroll down to the end of the post for an MP3 link.) Novelist, journalist and writing instructor Elizabeth Benedict should probably include &quot;Internet search engines&quot; in the list of things that have been formative to her writing career. The widely praised author of the 2006 novel The Practice of Deceit, who at one point was labeled the &quot;Sex Priestess of the Ivy League&quot; by the New York Observer, once Googled the word &quot;sex&quot; and cataloged her findings in an essay called &quot;What I Learned About Sex on the Internet.&quot; More recently, she searched Amazon.com on a whim to see if there had been any books published about writers and their mentors. There hadn&#39;t been. And so Benedict ran with the results of her Amazon search and seized the opportunity snatch up one of the increasingly few untapped literary concepts remaining, enlisting a group of 30 writers to compile an anthology of essays about the people, books and life experiences that had inspired them. What she found was that writers from Joyce Carol Oates to Denis Johnson to Jonathan Safran Foer were overjoyed at being given the opportunity to write about (surprise!) their own writing and what had influenced it. A hop and a skip forward, cue the October 2009 publication of Mentors, Muses &amp; Monsters: 30 Writers on the People Who Changed Their Lives. Back in November, Benedict hosted six of the 30 writers featured in the anthology to speak at the Brattle Theatre for a mega-meta orgy of bookwormy navel-gazing. Here&#39;s what each panelist had to say about the heroes and helpmates who indelibly impacted their writing careers. Novelist and Grub Street artistic director Christopher Castellani (The Saint of Lost Things) told the crowd of his experience at Middlebury College&#39;s Bread Loaf Writers Conference, where he watched one of his classmates become teary-eyed as Charles Baxter read, by heart, a passage from The Feast of Love. 2009 PEN New England Award winning novelist Margot Livesey said that she channels the enthusiasms of her late adoptive father (an English teacher at a Scottish school for boys), who inspired Livesey to draw inspiration from books themselves. &quot;Who knows if the pages I&#39;m working on now will see the light of day?&quot; she asked herself. &quot;When ... I&#39;m at a loss to frame an idea or make a connection, I follow [my father&#39;s] example. I plump the pillows, and I turn to my library.&quot; For National Book Award finalist Jim Shepard, it was postmodern American novelist John Hawkes who made a monumental impression as his English professor at Brown. Shepard, who now teaches at Williams College, relayed the the familiar tale of a best-selling Ivy League English teacher paving the way for his student to evolve into another best-selling author and English teacher. The cyle continues. The story was similar for novelist and essayist Jay Cantor, who was taught by Bernard Malamud during his years at Harvard. &quot;I still thought that I should be a doctor, as my father wanted, although I knew beyond doubt that I wanted to be a writer,&quot; he said. &quot;For a good Jewish boy like myself, &#39;should&#39; was the glue of the personality. And I&#39;m not sure how this story would have gone on if Bernard Malamud hadn&#39;t come to Harvard for two years to teach a writing class.&quot; Today, the Cambridge-based Cantor is a winner of the MacArthur Prize Fellowship and oversees creative writing at Tufts. Lincoln-born, National Book Award-winning novelist Julia Glass turned to her experience with cancer during the publicBoston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicFrom the looks of things, a lot of you folks intend to make 2010 the Year of More Writing. Need a little inspiration to help you battle the blank page? Well, we can&#39;t help you with that one --...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/v9nolwieosY" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/636662.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/l_EJy9zgIG8/635504.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/635504.aspx Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:43:00 GMT no &nbsp; What&#39;s the nexus between The Diary of Anne Frank and Julia Child&#39;s Mastering the Art of French Cooking? Both were scooped out of the literary rejection piles by famed Knopf editor Judith Jones and made into worldwide classics. Today, the 8www.thephoenix.com &nbsp; What&#39;s the nexus between The Diary of Anne Frank and Julia Child&#39;s Mastering the Art of French Cooking? Both were scooped out of the literary rejection piles by famed Knopf editor Judith Jones and made into worldwide classics. Today, the 85-year-old Jones is working alongside a culinary figure of already-epic proportions -- she&#39;s edited and mentored Italian cooking legend Lidia Bastianich throughout the publication of her new cookbook, Lidia Cooks From the Heart of Italy, a collection of unusual recipes from lesser-known regions of Italy. With food serving as a lifelong muse, Jones has also penned her own works, including this year&#39;s The Pleasures of Cooking for One. Last month, Jones and Bastianich joined forces at the Brattle Theatre, giving a talk-show style discussion of their relationship with one another, their latest books, and, of course, the way they like their food. As the icy wrath of winter drives you in search of gut-warming comfort food and New Year&#39;s resolutions perhaps inspire new dieting efforts, take into consideration this sage advice from Bastianich and Jones. Cooking alone can curb loneliness: As a foodie and a widow, Jones has had a fair amount of experience adjusting to the process of cooking for just one person, and she&#39;s trying to help other singles do the same. &quot;They [singles] don&#39;t understand that it&#39;s a way of treating yourself well, sort of relaxing at the end of the day,&quot; she said. &quot;It is that pleasure of filling the house with good smells ... you feel less alone. To me, it&#39;s the best part of the day.&quot; Cooking for just yourself is healthy, eco-friendly, and economical: Both Bastianich and Jones emphasize the importance of using leftovers. &quot;When I talk about cooking for one, I always talk about the leftovers, the reusing ... which is part of the Italian tradition,&quot; Bastianich said. Jones went on to cite the green-ness of our current culinary consciousness, explaining that &quot;if you cook for yourself, you&#39;re in control of what you&#39;re eating. I think that&#39;s a very important factor. And you spend less money, and you enjoy it.&quot; Food is not a villain: Bastianich and Jones, particularly in their latest publications, celebrate heartier natural foods served in manageable portions -- notions that run counter to certain American attitudes toward food. &quot;All of this bad news about food, it gets exaggerated out of proportion, and then you wait for the next decade and butter is okay [again],&quot; Jones said. &quot;If we could just push all of that away and make food that we really like.&quot; DOWNLOAD: Lidia Bastianich and Judith Jones [MP3] &nbsp; Recorded live at the Brattle Theatre, courtesy of the Harvard Book Store, on November 9, 2009. To subscribe to this podcast, paste this RSS feed into your podcatcher or feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academic&nbsp; What&#39;s the nexus between The Diary of Anne Frank and Julia Child&#39;s Mastering the Art of French Cooking? Both were scooped out of the literary rejection piles by famed Knopf editor...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/l_EJy9zgIG8" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/635504.aspx http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~3/VhYSumFIz-Q/625736.aspx ccarioli@phx.com (www.thephoenix.com) http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/625736.aspx Wed, 09 Dec 2009 11:00:00 GMT no The Truth About Santa author Gregory Mone speaks at Google&#39;s Boston headquarters Plenty of authoritative geeks have weighed in on Christmas and its patron saint of gift-giving: According to Neil Gaiman, Santa Claus is a tortured soul who cannot die, www.thephoenix.com The Truth About Santa author Gregory Mone speaks at Google&#39;s Boston headquarters Plenty of authoritative geeks have weighed in on Christmas and its patron saint of gift-giving: According to Neil Gaiman, Santa Claus is a tortured soul who cannot die, a slave to the &quot;dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns.&quot; The way Futurama sees it, Santa is a rogue robot conqueror who emerges from his death fortress on Neptune once a year to rain destruction upon the naughty. But we all know that&#39;s pure fantasy ... and Gregory Mone agrees. And as a writer for Popular Science, Mone is only interested in fact. The Santa that you know and love -- the chipper red-cheeked fellow with the flying sleigh -- is as much a figment of the imagination as a Neptunian killbot. If Santa actually operated the way the Rankin-Bass Claymation specials say he does, his Christmas Eve journey alone would take him an estimated 1,500 years to carry out. Which is preposterous. Instead, Mone wants you to know: the real Santa uses wormholes. &quot;As anyone with a decent grasp of physics, biology, and material science understands, Santa&#39;s advertised abilities are perfectly plausible,&quot; Mone told us at his LSC-organized MIT lecture back in early November. &quot;The trick is that he has at his disposal some of the most advanced equipment, devices, and means of transportation in this or any other universe. ... People think he&#39;s magic because they don&#39;t understand how his gadgets work.&quot; At his talk, Mone powered through a dizzying synopsis of his new book, The Truth About Santa: Wormholes, Robots, and What Really Happens on Christmas Eve, for which he called up scientists and other field experts -- management consultants, Berkeley astrophysicists, Navy SEALs -- and grilled them about Santa Claus ops. His research suggests: -Santa is not immortal, but retains his jolly vigor with the help of organ printers. -Santa does not, in fact, leave toys under the tree; instead, he comes bearing complex chemical reactions -- toys assemble themselves in their packaging. -Santa’s Christmas Eve rounds are actually accomplished via several teams of Santa-recruited lieutenants, a series of short-distance wormholes, and time travel. -Santa’s base of operations (actually in Greenland, not the North Pole) is greatly threatened by global warming -- to keep his unfathomably large server farm cool, he needs the Arctic chill. Kris Kringle’s own green initiatives include planting trees and cloning his elves (&quot;because he wouldn&#39;t want [them] breeding on their own&quot;). The pleasure of an exercise like The Truth About Santa lives and dies by the nerdy details. In this 52-minute teaser blitzkrieg, however, Mone had to do a lot of skimming, so this lecture is about 70% lunatic conspiracy theory and 30% delicious science. But even if it&#39;s just the tip of an insane thought-experiment iceberg, this talk still shines in the little blips where the author describes how he got actual experts to, say, perform a cost-benefit analysis of Santa outsourcing his elfwork. Impressively, Mone did not drop his shtick for a single second. Hear it for yourself: DOWNLOAD: Gregory Mone, “The Truth About Santa,” at MIT [MP3] Recorded live at MIT on November 5, 2009, courtesy of MIT&#39;s Lecture Series Committee. To subscribe to this podcast, paste this RSS feed into your feed-reader of choice, or bookmark http://thephoenix.com/podcast. Boston,Cambridge,authors,literature,books,readings,talks,politics,science,culture,zombies,film,movies,MIT,Harvard,noir,horror,humor,brains,spoken,word,Barack,Obama,crime,art,academicThe Truth About Santa author Gregory Mone speaks at Google&#39;s Boston headquarters Plenty of authoritative geeks have weighed in on Christmas and its patron saint of gift-giving: According to Neil...<br/> <br/> Support independent media! Read the rest at http://thephoenix.com/podcast/<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PHXPodcast/~4/VhYSumFIz-Q" height="1" width="1"/>http://blog.thephoenix.com/blogs/625736.aspxen-uswww.thephoenix.comnonadultLive from Boston: Smart people who will make you smarter