Archives for April 2006

What’s the difference between a plagiarist and a copycat? Nothing really — except one admitted it and the other didn’t, one is a writer and the other is an artist, one had her novel plagiarism vs. Vik Muniz’s

“Armed Madhouse,” a five-part investigation of the “global economic piggery” that starts at home in the good ol’ U.S. of A. To borrow a friend’s coinage for one of Greg Palast’s typical columns, goes like so: Here is our new world of militarized greed, where America’s panic over lunatics with box-cutters has metastasized into a […]

Here’s one fer da books: “Naked Lunch” and tales of one to make your hair stand on end. Remember Karl Böhm, beloved German maestro at the Met?” PPS from another friend: “A

new Neil Young album (due out in May)? I haven’t. But the song title sounds catchy. [April 28: written here, during the 2004 election campaign: On the third anniversary of 9/11, the best way for Americans to honor the dead is to look to the future by realizing that the upcoming presidential election will be […]

Brazen arrogance + abysmal incompetence = “I’m the decider.” An old story by now. But the

Now that Repulski has his And the answer is: In a The artist’s son writes that his father “started out as a Cubist under the influence of his friend, Juan Gris.” Quintanilla was reluctant to engage in politics, but in 1934 he hosted a committee of the October revolution in his studio and was arrested […]

Apparently prompted by yesterday’s Dear Repulski — You are a man of strong intuition or ESP, maybe both, because I just re-read

Mining the files has uncovered a text from Sept. 23, 1971. The original, typed out on seven pages of orange graph paper with photo illustrations, includes this little potboiler: A LIBERATIONIST PLOT The Pacific Railroad Station was marked for destruction. It sat between two hills adjacent to an old farm. The morning was cool and […]

“Cut Up or Shut Up,” “Twinpak” (with an illustration), “la poésie visuelle politique,” and so on. Sorin’s article is part of a two-page spread, “LA ‘LITTÉRATURE’ SAUVAGE,” which also includes Jean-Michel Palmier’s essay, “Quand Lénine devient Mickey,” about Abbie Hoffman, Allen Ginsberg, and others. Ain’t dat a kick in da head? EmailFacebookTwitterReddit

First he made “Old Glory” condoms that came in red, white and blue. Then he got them patented as a patriotic anti-AIDS device after a fight with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Now he’s submitted a formal proposal to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a Disneyfied Vegas-style Resort & Theme Park in […]

Several points to make before signing off for a while: 1) Dontcha just love Paul Krugman’s anti-McCain columns? “The Right’s Man” on March 13 was tasty. “It’s time for some straight talk about John McCain,” Krugman began. “He isn’t a moderate. He’s much less of a maverick than you’d think. And he isn’t the straight […]