current features

psychic ills

Go to the Radio: An Interview with Psychic Ills

Music Interview by Anna-Lynne Williams | 11.24.08

Largely improvised, but never sloppy or misguided, their long and sometimes disturbing pieces are hypnotic and transcendent, blending a driving rock aesthetic with unnameable textures.

Summer/Fall Poetry Collection

Verse by Various Poets | 11.24.08

For poets, the question always nags: "if I tell you how I feel right now / will you look at me and make some facial expression?"

A Field Guide to New England Fathers

Fiction by Brian Hurley | 11.24.08

Sanger's Grocery Store sold binoculars, bows and arrows, canoe paddles, and whittling knives. I pulled down one of each and shoved them at my mom. This was our new rule: she always had to check the price.

"He Appears, However, Almost to Go Backwards": Impossibly Short Notes on The Ister

Film Retrospective by Mike Wood | 11.24.08

Imagine a trip up the Danube River as a metaphor for the history of Western Civilization. Do you see the progress along the shore as one of humanity, or of technology? Is there any evidence that development in the latter has advanced human thought or morality?

How We Made A Difference

Fiction by Joseph Bates | 11.10.08

On Halloween, the neighborhood children dress up like neo-conservatives and go door to door spreading lies.

Brave New Music: An Interview with Frida Hyvonen

Music Interview by Anna-Lynne Williams | 10.30.08

After listening to her new album, Silence is Wild, it is impossible not to feel that Frida has genuinely revealed herself, leaving the listener feeling slightly awkward, and highly impressed.

When Dolls Talk

Essay by David Perez | 10.30.08

I was eighteen years old when my daughter, Belinda, was born--a kid having a kid. I didn’t see myself as a kid, of course. That understanding came later.

An Interview with People's Historian Howard Zinn

Author Interview by Robert Birnbaum | 10.1.08

"I am even more persuaded than I was ten years ago that governments are essentially rotten and not to be trusted. To put it another way, the anarchist distrust for government--as more history parades itself before us, the more events come into our view--the anarchist distrust of government seems to me more and more legitimate."

Oz Captain! My Captain!: An “Ode” to Midnight Oil & An Interview with Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie

Interview by Matt Okie | 9.19.08

From the first rumblings of the opening riff--the brassy stomp of “Beds Are Burning” (i.e., the now-famous duh, duh, du-u-uh!)--I became stupid with goosebumps. My heart pounded like some long-extinct herd. And for the first time in my rock-n-roll life, I felt my very aliveness...

Planting Seeds: 13 Questions with Mia Doi Todd

Music Interview by Anna-Lynne Williams | 9.10.08

"I like to listen to the arc of a record, like reading a book from start to finish. I make records that way."

Under Water Eyes

Fiction by Brian P. Katz | 9.10.08

"His eyes, my Andere Vater's eyes, they would hurt so much, but he kept smiling, never frowning, never complaining."

Only Love is All Maroon: An Interview with Bon Iver

Music Interview by Anna-Lynne Williams | 9.10.08

With all your lies, you're still very lovable. - "For Emma"

Mil Máscaras: An Interview with Pulitzer-Winner Junot Díaz

Author Interview by Matt Okie | 9.2.08

"But I do think that because we're sort of 'living in the Matrix,' we have this hunger for truth and fact because we know these things are important--and we’ve abdicated truth and fact in the larger society--so we’re just projecting our need for them onto other areas. I just think that fiction, like many other areas, is being asked to carry the burden for a society that no longer wants to confront itself."

search archives

news and views

reviews

subscribe/network

What We're Reading

more editor picks