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

“J. Edgar Hoover Shotgun” c. 1960s  gelatin silver print by Hunter S. Thompson FRESH AIR Four years after Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Tim Weiner published Legacy of Ashes, his detailed history of the CIA, he received a call from a lawyer in Washington, D.C. “He said, ‘I’ve just gotten my hands on a Freedom of Information Act request that’s 26 years old for [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover’s intelligence files. Would you like them?’ ” Weiner tells Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross. “And after a stunned silence, I said, ‘Yes, yes.’ ” Weiner went to the lawyer’s office and collected four boxes […]

NewsPosted on:

WORTH REPEATING: Being Aaron Swartz

  THE NEW YORKER: Aaron Swartz hanged himself in his apartment in Brooklyn on January 11th. He was twenty-six, but he had been well known as a computer programmer for many years. At the age of fourteen, he helped to develop the RSS software that enables the syndication of information over the Internet. At fifteen, he e-mailed one of the leading theorists of Internet law, Lawrence Lessig, and helped to write the code for Lessig’s Creative Commons, which, by writing alternatives to standard copyright licenses, allows people to share their work more freely. At nineteen, he was a developer of […]

NewsPosted on:

CONTEST: Win Tix To See Devotchka @ The Troc

  DeVotchKa is a four-piece multi-instrumental and vocal ensemble that specializes in widescreen sepia-toned orchestral maneuvers in the dark. They take their name from the Russian word devochka (???????), meaning “girl”. Based in Denver, Colorado, the quartet is made up of Nick Urata, who sings and plays theremin, guitar, bouzouki, piano, and trumpet; Tom Hagerman, who plays violin, accordion, and piano; Jeanie Schroder, who sings and plays sousaphone, double bass, and flute; and Shawn King, who plays percussion and trumpet. Originally a backing band for burlesque shows, in their early years DeVotchKa also toured with burlesque performer and model Dita […]

215 , Music , NewsPosted on:

EARLY WORD: Get Your Ziggy On

  “The first time I heard Ziggy Stardust, I was in a record shop, and it came on, and I had to be somewhere, but I couldn’t leave without hearing the next song, and the next. Now whenever I hear that record, I get that same feeling. It’s great start-to-finish. And it dawned on me one day that it would be fun to put together a band to play it, the whole thing, with one singer after another.” That’s Kev Monko, musical director of the conglomeration of some two dozen local musicians dubbed Candy Volcano, whose sole purpose is to […]

NewsPosted on:

15 YEARS LATER: The Dude Still Abides

  VULTURE: When The Big Lebowski premiered in 1998 as Joel and Ethan’s first film after their critically beloved Fargo, it was not a blockbuster. It cost twice as much to make as Fargo and made a quarter less. Over the past 15 years, though, it’s grown a loyal underground following. At age 13 in 1998, I was an early adopter (or, I should say, early Achiever, or Lebowski fan). It’s an honor and a pleasure to get to reminisce about my favorite movie a decade and a half after its release. Here are fifteen thoughts, large and small, on […]

NewsPosted on:

GET ANGRY: ‘Oh, I say and I say it again, ya been had! Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray!’

  DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Incomes and tax revenues have grown from 2009 to 2011 as the economy recovered, but an astonishing 149 percent of the increased income went to the top 10 percent of earners. If you wonder how that can happen, the answer is simple: Incomes fell for the bottom 90 percent. The rich really are getting richer while the vast majority is getting poorer. The income growth and shrinkage figures come from analysis of the latest IRS data by economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, who have won acclaim for their studies of worldwide income patterns over the […]

NewsPosted on:

WORTH REPEATING: Starman

  NEW YORK TIMES: On “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” the new single from David Bowie’s comeback album, “The Next Day,” one line jumps out: “We will never be rid of these stars.” In the video Mr. Bowie and the actress Tilda Swinton play an elderly couple persecuted by a pair of vampiric stars, who stalk them, invade their house and manipulate them like marionettes. But the song itself is less literal. It portrays celebrities as members of an overlord class who “burn you with their radiant smiles” but also as faintly pitiable creatures, jealous of the quiet, grounded lives of […]

NewsPosted on:

OUTTAKE: Devendra Banhart On Hugo Chavez

Photo by CHRIS BUCK for MAGNET MAGAZINE “I don’t know a single person that lives in Venezuela that supports Chavez and I know plenty of people that live here that are all about him. They think he’s a wonderful guy, the underdog that socked it to America. To them he’s a superhero. But I don’t know a single person living in Venezuela that has anything good to say about the guy. What has he changed? It’s a shame because I do love Venezuela. I feel very Venezuelan when I’m not there, I feel very American when I’m there. But there’s […]

NewsPosted on: