"Shipwrecked on the Wrong Side of Tomorrow"

By Donna Gaines

Rory Nugent, travel writer and mariner, spent seventeen years living and working in the Massachusetts port city of New Bedford, home to "America's largest fishing fleet.” From 1988 to 2005 Nugent documented the “riches to rags” story of an industry, it’s economy, culture and community, capturing the last gasp as it tumbled into the murky drink. Continue reading ""Shipwrecked on the Wrong Side of Tomorrow""

Willie_Mitchell_t607.jpgWillie Mitchell, 1928 – 2010. Photo credit: Memphis Commercial Appeal

Free at Last

By Charles O'Brien

Willie Mitchell slipped away this January 5 just past. Trumpet player, bandleader, songwriter, he was foremost a producer. Not a celebrity producer, he was better than that. Throughout the 60s, he made records under his own name. they were mostly instrumentals, in a Junior Walker-ish style. The title of one collection, That Driving Beat, is an accurate description. That would change. He almost never featured his own trumpet playing. That self-effacement wouldn’t. Continue reading "Free at Last"


The End of Sensitivity

By Ben Kessler

If you’re a pop listener, you may have wondered: What accounts for the undeniable popularity (among both consumers and critics) of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”? Arguably the most hyped personality in the Western world, Lady Gaga cavorts in celebration of nightmare, declaring, “I want your loving and I want your revenge/You and me could write a bad romance.” Seconds later, apparently unaware she’s in hell, she chants her own name amidst nonsense syllables, proving that nihilism is the new naivete. Continue reading "The End of Sensitivity"


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"There's a New Left in Town"

By Sarah Benninga

Last fall, a small group of young Israeli activists began gathering on Fridays in Sheikh Jarrah to stop the eviction of Palestinian families from this East Jerusalem neighborhood. Three of those families, spawned by (once-and-future?) Palestinian refugees who had lived in West Jerusalem before 1948, have now been thrown out of their homes to make way for Jewish settlers. Other Palestinian families in the neighborhood are at risk of eviction, waiting on Israeli courts to adjudicate claims made by would-be settlers. The demonstrations on behalf of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah... Continue reading ""There's a New Left in Town""


Battles of Ajami

By Judy Gelman-Myers

Fifty years ago, the Israeli film industry was largely churning out pro-Zionist propaganda films (Ephraim Kishon being the rare exception). To represent its face to the world in 2010, Israel brought to the Academy Awards an Arab-language flick co-directed by a Palestinian and a Jewish Israeli, focusing largely on inter-Arab issues; "Ajami" was one of the five nominees in the Best Foreign Film category. The Palestinian co-director has been called a collaborator. Israel’s nominating committee has been demonized as a pack of lefties. But something is changing on the streets of Jaffa, whose citizens have been given, in "Ajami," both a mirror in which to behold their own community and an international voice. Continue reading "Battles of Ajami"


Nailing "Avatar"

By Fredric Smoler

The fallacy that great events have great causes tempts both film critics and civilian interpreters to explain mass ticket sales in pretty grandiose terms. "Avatar," touted to displace "Titanic" as the movie with the biggest box office gross in history, has provoked this impulse with a vengeance. The film critics are the least of it: Evo Morales, populist President of Bolivia, is enthusiastic about what he takes to be a “profound show of resistance to capitalism and the struggle for the defense of nature,” while a Vatican spokesman thinks "Avatar" espouses a somewhat sinister pantheism, and an NYT opinion columnist had a similar thought. Continue reading "Nailing "Avatar""

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