A Wolf in Freshly-ironed Sheep's Clothing - Ryn Gargulinski.  "After a five month whirlwind of togetherness, it finally felt like a noose were tightening around your neck, maybe in the shape of a wedding band.  You had to get out...   He leaves 837 messages.  They go from pissed off to apologetic to downright begging..."  Ah - relationships!

- Fair Rosamunde from lovely Bisbee, Arizona. "Bisbee is technically a city, but most think of it as a town (pop. 6,326 including me). Nonetheless, there is not the nightlife range of say, Brooklyn, to choose from. However, I love my Friday nights here."  Read on.

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Olympic Hotdogs, the works - US athletes in Torino 2006 Winter Olympics by Garrett Mok. "Skiing was invented in Norway, and hotdogging in, you guessed it, US of A"

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Marilyn Manson by Mark Mordue. "...that awful feeling of an artist on the slide - despite the thousands of fans here to see the self-proclaimed ‘God of Fuck’ do it to them one more time."

Mexico City / The Black Keys by Mark Mordue.  ""I knew something was up when I came in through the door. You were in tears and my shit was all over the floor..."  Put me in it man. Take me there."

Morrissey by Mark Mordue. "Curious creature. Half denying us yet wanting our love, chilling us with the dark edges of sadness yet exalting us to ecstasy if not joy; amusing us with your wit and theatricality and some other strange quality that appears to pass over you like a constant spasm of narcissism...."

The Vines by Mark Mordue. "... Craig Nicholls performed like a god. Big gestures, ecstatic motions, rolling over the drum kit in a radical spinal twist, aiming his feedbacking guitar at the audience and letting it hum over their heads like a wand."

Loretta Goldberg's "Zygotones" by Ryn Gargulinski.  "At first it sounds like noise.  Not bad noise, mind you.  It is not annoying like a screeching subway or angry like a pissed-off mom.  But it's piano noise, playfully discordant, beautifully fanciful.  On second listen, however, and after reading the CD insert, the noise develops into much, much more."

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Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy by Matthew Scully - Review by Rachelle Annechino.  "Dominion is a complex and moving inquiry into animal welfare issues from the point of view of an avowed Christian conservative, Matthew Scully... You’ll probably disagree with Scully on some points, sure, but respectfully.  And why bother to read a book if you expect to agree with everything in it?"

Consequence: Beyond Resisting Rape - Review by Laura Saiter. "What is street harassment? How far does attention from strangers, specifically male-to-female, have to go to be considered harassment?... After all, the world places so much importance on female beauty that we could be led to take virtually any wanted or unwanted sexual attention barring direct physical aggression as good attention."

Peter Hessler's River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze. Review by Mark Mordue.  "Peter Hessler is certainly one of those writers who restore your faith in the travel genre’s revelatory potential, even its nobility. His book River Town documents the two years he spent as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching literature at a teachers’ college in Fuling, a small “by Chinese standards” town of some two hundred thousand people in the Sichuan province."

Dirk Wittenborn's Fierce People.  Review by Mark Mordue.  "Bret Easton Ellis loves it. So does Jay McInerney and Susan Minot. I guess that makes me suspicious straight away... but I couldn’t put it down..."

Steve Earle's Doghouse Roses. Review by Mark Mordue.  "Anyone witness to a recent solo live tour by the rock musician Steve Earle would have no qualms telling you about the greatness this aching bear of a man exuded on stage... Doghouse Roses begins powerfully enough with a clearly semi-autobiographical tale about a country musician addicted to heroin and crack cocaine, being ferried out of L.A. by his emotionally exhausted record company girlfriend... It's a knockout."

Corporal Works of Mercy: Why the progressive left should embrace faith-based social service spending by Daniel Kreiss.  "I had always been deeply skeptical of the claims of religion... It was not until I worked on the staff of St. Martin de Porres Homeless Shelter in Lewiston, Maine, that I fully appreciated the redemptive aspects of religion, and the near necessity of this grounding in many people’s lives who were struggling on the margins with drug and sexual abuse, poverty, and racism."

Credits: Black & White illustrations through out the site are by Alex Gruen.

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Online since:
November 18, 1995