The Last Magazine (Paperback) by David Renard (Author), Steven Heller (Contributor), Jan Van Mol (Contributor), Rankin (Contributor), Robert Sacks (Contributor) (from Universe/Rizzoli) Print is dying, so our current crop means we're watching the Last Mags -- a supernova, if this were music it would … [Read more...]

NPR's HERE AND NOW The Legacy set piece aired today. … [Read more...]

from ON THE MEDIA Iraq Veterans Memorial … [Read more...]

At first hearing I felt like I was eavesdropping on Shrub's unconscious, the kind of fearful bullying that renounces both Baker's bi-partisan Iraq "Study" Group recommendations and Gates's pleading to close Gitmo -- why get rid of Rumsfeld when his hotel managers keep raping the Geneva conventions? … [Read more...]

TWO NEW PODCASTS POSTED The first is old already (12/01/06), holiday box set recommentations including Fats Waller, Bob Wills, Buddy Guy and Gram Parsons. The second is from yesterday, Guilty Pleasures, alongside Renee Graham. Prescott gave it up privately that hers includes Madonna's … [Read more...]

OR WHY WE LOVE THE TIMES Houdini's grave to be opened - but what will they find there? Which begs the response: "Geraldo Rivera" -- Harry Shearer … [Read more...]

A Story That Could Be True If you were exchanged in the cradle and your real mother died without ever telling the story then no one knows your name, and somewhere in the world your father is lost and needs you but you are far away. He can never find how true you are, how ready. When the great wind … [Read more...]

You could feel TV's ground shift the other night as Eddie Izzard launched The Riches on FX, his coolly ambitious satire. The humor was jagged, lit by violence, the characters hungry and gulping down plot, the tone steely-eyed anarchic. There was Minnie Driver, a con on parole, sobbing, throwing her … [Read more...]

Brooks keeps showing up: on the latest NYRB subscription dropout card, and you have to wonder: what demo does this caricature appeal to? The 75-and-over crowd? Those lecherous old poets? Does this ancient ingenue actually sell magazines? Does anybody write in saying "OMIGawd, I never realized this … [Read more...]

THE REVOLUTION WILL BE BLOGGED We be thumping now anyway: Riley Rock Index now features a weekly rss feed, which works on your mobile. And next week: Abbey Road podcast. … [Read more...]

Slate put me onto Snarksmith, a book-reader's blog, which led me to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, starring Robert Downey Jr. as an inversion of Chandler's Marlowe, and Val Kilmer as the gay LAPI who "shows him the ropes." The concept is clever, but moment by moment it's blisteringly funny. Still can't decide … [Read more...]

Story airs TODAY on HERE AND NOW, between 12-1pm EST on WBUR-FM Boston. Click here for the live stream, audio will get posted as soon as it's up. RILEY ROCK INDEX The Index is now in official hardcore soft-beta, including a new weekly features page for groovy updates. Click on "grapevine," … [Read more...]

FEY ON TOP "I hear Aaron Sorkin is in Los Angeles wearing the same dress - but longer, and not funny." … [Read more...]

DAVID THOMSON Reviewers couldn't get past the conceit of his Kidman crush, which motors his prose beyond devotional. Eccentric, over-the-top, and compulsively readable, in sections earning its analogies and fantasy roles, as Bee Wilson notes in LRB. LESLIE SAVAN The NYTimes especially seemed … [Read more...]

PULL QUOTE "A composer whose core work represents brevity carried almost past its logical conclusion..." --Bernard Holland on Webern How many aesthetic distinctions get coiled up in that word "almost"? Discuss. … [Read more...]