NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t

FRESH AIR Barbara Ehrenreich is known for her books and essays about politics, social welfare, class, women’s health and other women’s issues. Her best-seller Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, explored the difficulties faced by low-wage workers. So fans of Ehrenreich’s writing may be surprised at the subject of her new memoir — the mystical visions she had as a teenager. To make her new book an even more unlikely subject, Ehrenreich describes herself as a rationalist, a scientist by training, and an atheist who is the daughter of atheists. Living With a Wild God: A Nonbeliever’s […]

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WALTER MARTIN: “We Like The Zoo”

Another adorable track from ex-Walkmen Walter Martin’s solo debut We’re All Young Together , out May 13 via Family Jukebox. With additional vox from The National’s Matt Berninger. “‘We Like the Zoo (‘Cause We’re Animals Too)’ is my tribute to the lost art of the novelty song,” Walter says. “Songs like ‘Poison Ivy” and ‘Yakety Yak’–all those Leiber and Stoller masterpieces–are a big part of my life. I didn’t want to put my name on an album that didn’t have room for that kind of song.” Word.

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MEDIA: Time To Take Your Medicine

Artwork by BARRY BLITT This is quite brilliant. Light and folksy in a Bill Cosby/Norman Rockwell kind of way on the surface, beneath it blows a dog whistle that will drive the entire spectrum of Republicans/Teabaggers/stone-cold racists batshit crazy. Or, batshit crazier, to be exact. By rights, he should be holding a big syringe instead of teaspoon, but that would ruin the aforementioned Blue Velevet effect. Well played, sir. RELATED: Whatever else you do this week, carve out half an hour to read my colleague Ryan Lizza’s piece about Chris Christie and New Jersey politics. It’s Robert Penn Warren meets […]

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WORTH REPEATING: Why I Have A Dream

  SOLOMON JONES: In 1972, when Stone became a political columnist at the Philadelphia Daily News, I was 5-years-old. There was no Internet, and neither cable television nor social media existed. There was only the newspaper, and the images on its pages could determine how an entire community was framed. That’s why Stone’s image mattered. For 20 years, Stone’s face, staring out at me from the pages of the newspaper, communicated what was possible. That face—with skin a little darker than that of the other columnists—told me that journalism was an option for me. Adorned with glasses, and an intellect […]

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BADVERTISING: Andrew Brietbart Continues To Be Just As Obnoxious In Death As He Was In Life

  Not since Spinal Tap’s SMELL THE GLOVE, a landmark of modern misogyny, has such tone deaf sexism masqueraded as edginess so cluelessly. RELATED: Beware of Los Angeles bus stops this week: Breitbart California launched on Monday with a series of awful ads including Nancy Pelosi on all fours and Mark Zuckerberg with exposed female breasts. The posters seem like they’re going for fresh and DIY and edgy, but instead they’re tired sexist jokes that reek of desperation for controversy. MORE

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CONTEST: Win Tix To RISK! @ Underground Arts

  Shocking! Shameful! Outrageous! Scandalous! Possibly even against the law in some countries! On Friday, host Kevin Allison of MTV’s The State, Reno 911, and Flight of the Concords, brings together a cast of leading storytellers — Thomas Dixon, Kitty Hailey, Alex Kacala, and Teresa Marquard — to tell jaw-dropping stories in the nude they never thought they’d dare share in public on the theme of “Revelation” at Underground Arts. Phindie called it “The undisputed G-spot of the First Person Arts Festival.” We’d argue that it’s the undisputed wet spot of the First Person Arts Festival and somebody’s gotta sleep […]

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CINEMA: Captain Sensible

  CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014, directed by Anthony & Joe Russo, 136 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC The sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger is the ninth in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” franchise and to paraphrase classic rock titans Foreigner, it feels like the ninth time. Directed by TV directors/feature film failures The Russo Brothers (of the Owen Wilson vehicle You, Me and Dupree) Cap’s latest adventure, subtitled The Winter Soldier, hits all the expected marks of an $170 million profit-reaper but its shameless calculations do little to break this entry out of the increasingly […]

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Q&A: With Documentary Filmmaker Sam Green, Inventor Of The Love Song Of Buckminster Fuller

  BY JONATHAN VALANIA Since 1997, filmmaker Sam Green has been making thought-provoking, rigorously reported and eminently entertaining documentaries about, in his words, “the outer contours of human experience.” Be it the rainbow-wigged, Bible-thumping kidnapper (currently serving three life sentences) of 1997’s The Rainbow Man/John 3:16 or the utopian dreamers turned bomb-throwing revolutionaries by the murderous insanity of the Vietnam War in The Weather Underground, or the miraculous Guinness Book human oddities living lives of quiet desperation in 2014’s The Measure Of All Things. The Love Song Of R. Buckminster Fuller, which gets its Philly premiere tonight during two sold […]

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EXCERPT: The Boys Are Back In Town

After a decade of cheap beer, positive jams and killer parties, there’s ‘blood on the carpet, mud on the mattress.’ MAGNET (well, just me, actually) goes to Brooklandia to watch The Hold Steady sleep it off and wake up with that American Sadness. I’m still hungover. As promised, here’s that  meaty, beaty, big and bouncy excerpt. Enjoy: BY JONATHAN VALANIA When Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn was growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the shag-carpeted ’70s, there was nothing musical about the family Finn, nothing at all. Nobody played an instrument. Nobody played records on the stereo. They did not […]

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