After sailing along for three weeks, the close of (everybody else's) work week brought us to the realization that the hard work was just beginning.

There's a line from Satre, from Huis Clos (No Exit) that sums it up nicely: Hell is other people. Hell isn't an eternal damnation with singed skin.… Read full post »

RULE #1: Festival Coordinators Get Swine Flu (But They Still Work 12-Hour Days)

Swine flu. That sounds pretty ugly and probably is a good reason to spend the day reading Plato's Republic. Instead, the to-do list for the day resembles nothing so much as a line of airplanes… Read full post »

Sometime over the past year, I went from being an unemployed new resident of Florida to a coordinator on a major regional festival. I was also a freelance writer with a growing pile of rejections and a wealth of anonymous writing credits shilling product on style Web sites. For the next… Read full post »

 

 

This Friday, the body of Michael Jackson will be on public display at Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara County, California. Gary, Indiana, would like the body, or would like to be next in line to receive the body. Gary Mayor Rudy Clay thinks the corpse would be a great… Read full post »

 

Today's most popular (that is, most e-mailed) article in The New York Times travel section was one entitled "Frugal Paris." The City of Light and all things chicer than thou beat out articles about Puerto Rico and gangster hideouts in Wisconsin, as well it should. The "Frugal Paris" art… Read full post »

Two months after America celebrated its bicentennial, a new television show debuted on ABC. America would soon celebrate this show as "Jiggle TV," a form of entertainment not marked by its theatrical assets. The show was Charlie's Angels, a female detective series that made actress Farrah Fawcett… Read full post »

The most action Dad saw during the Korean War was puking over the side of a ship docked at Parris Island.  Gin, he said.  He never made it overseas and after his stateside tour was up he hopped a train back North and fired his weapons from behind a desk at… Read full post »

 Chances are that Phil Spector will die in prison. Last week, a judge sentenced Spector to life imprisonment for the 2003 murder of Lana Clarkson; Spector will not be eligible for parole until 2028, the year he turns 88.

Spector wore a sober shag wig to his sentencing. The hairpiece made S… Read full post »

 

 

 

Remember "Sex"? "Sex" (David Soller) turned up in Manhattan for two consecutive So You Think You Can Dance? auditions. He couldn't dance. He couldn't comprehend why no one thought he couldn't dance. Looking as if he failed PE at PS 101, "Sex" jerked through a second auditi… Read full post »

In response to a flood of rumors about the state of his marriage, Brad Pitt has announced that he is happy. Happy. He is hanging out at the Cannes Film Festival. He has a beautiful family. He might make more family. He is not banging the nanny or trying to look… Read full post »

 

 

 

 

 As fast-food is to the national diet, so Adam Lambert is to American Idol. The likely winner of Season Eight is a prime piece of fast-food entertainment. Both show and singer would have us believe that Lambert is new heir to a long line of peacockish androgyne… Read full post »

Suppose that McDonald's grew tired of fighting the coffee wars with Starbucks and decided instead to reinvent its icon as a modern provocateur with a pervy streak. Kids today are no longer amused by mere clowns, especially clowns that make nice and commit charitable acts. Kids today want to explore c
…

Read full post »

Books by politicians have never gone out of fashion. A politician is not the normal hack who piles up rejection slips and who spends a good deal of time bitching about literary trends. The politician needn't concern himself with aggravated post-postmodernism or with the difficulties of creatin… Read full post »

 
It seems fairly likely that at some point, someone hiking along the rim of the Grand Canyon looked around furtively, lowered his zipper, and had a healthy pee into the gorge. Urinating in national parks is a right of passage, supplanting spitting into the wind as an act of art for… Read full post »