ONLINE EXCLUSIVES
AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH
- 07 | 03 | 09
- 07 | 02 | 09
- 07 | 01 | 09
- 06 | 30 | 09
- 06 | 29 | 09
NY Times: Pay-for-chat plan falls flat at Washington Post. The Politico broke the story: Washington Post cancels lobbyist event amid uproar.
Slate: "Let me tell you about the time I interviewed Michael Jackson:" Why reporters won't shut up about their encounters with the dead pop star.
LA Times: Deep in debt and short on cash, California on Thursday churned out its first batch of IOUs in nearly two decades amid grumbles from bankers, growing public outrage and scant progress in negotiations to resolve the state's widening budget deficit.
AP: Sears Tower unveils 103rd floor glass balconies.
Fortune: Dumbest moments in business 2009... the midyear edition.
Daily Mail: Remote Ukrainian village wants to change its name to honour Michael Jackson.
NY Times: Ruling for Salinger, judge bans "Rye" sequel. + AP: Judge blocks publication of Salinger spinoff book.
Vanity Fair: The Politico’s Washington coup: Four old-media veterans may have solved the future of news with the Politico Web site, whose audience of six million obsessives and insiders consumes (and feeds) a real-time download of power data. The twist? Politico’s print version is what’s helped make it profitable.
Slate: Keeping the fizz in the journalism biz: Thanks to technology, we may be entering a golden age.
CNN: Vibe magazine founder Quincy Jones may attempt to buy back the now-shuttered hip-hop magazine, according to a published report.
Politico: Sarah Palin story sparks Republican family feud.
Mediaweek: OK! Looks to cash in on Michael Jackson death cover.
The Atlantic: Could DVR save print journalism?
Slate: Caught on Tape: What the Nixon tapes tell us about the Republican Party.
Reuters: Iraqis rejoice as U.S. troops leave Baghdad.
Newsweek: Is your boss on Twitter? Probably not. Why CEOs are avoiding online social networking.
Boston Globe: Times Co. reportedly sets bid deadline for Globe.
COLUMNS
20 Interviews
Excerpts and online-exclusive content from our annual 20 Interviews issue
Author Interviews
A collection of STOP SMILING's conversations with novelists, editors, poets and authors
Barbaric Yawps
The complete archives of Greg Purcell's poetry column
Book Reviews
A complete list of online-exclusive book reviews posted in 2009
Cannes Dispatches
Patrick Z. McGavin's reports from the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, as well as a look back at the 2008 festival
Chicago Stories
STOP SMILING's continuing coverage of our hometown of Chicago
Expats
A page devoted to our continuing coverage of essential expats
Face to Face
The complete archives of Alex Abramovich's conversations with contemporary authors and artists
Film Interviews
Our continuing collection of interviews with filmmakers
Film Reviews
A look back at Stop Smiling's reviews of films as they hit theaters
Gambling
A page devoted to our continuing coverage of risk-takers and odds-makers
Hollywood
Notes from Hollywood past and present
Jazz Files
A compendium of STOP SMILING's jazz coverage
Match Points
A series of interviews with Hollywood icon Norman Lloyd
Ode to the South
Stop Smiling's continuing coverage of the American South
Photo Essay
A series of online-exclusive photographs, ephemera and behind-the-scenes portraits
Slideshow Reviews
Exploring new book releases through slideshows of images. To launch, we present two books focusing on our hometown of Chicago
The Oasis
The source for Michael A. Gonzales' contributions to STOP SMILING
The U.K.
A collection of notes from across the Pond
Two Takes
Two reviewers offer their perspective on the same book
Under the Influence
The source for Robert K. Elder's interviews with directors
Washington, DC
Our continuing coverage of the nation's capital
STOP SMILING BLOG
- Karl Malden (1912-2009)
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Another product of Gary, Indiana has passed away: The great Oscar-winning actor Karl Malden, who shined in such classics as A Streetcar Named Desire, Birdman of Alcatraz, The Cincinnati Kid, Patton -- and perhaps most notably On the Waterfront, in which he played the persuasive priest -- died at age 97 in Brentwood, California. [Read Post] - Posted: 07 | 01 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// OBIT
- Take 'em to Church
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While studies continue to find that fewer Americans -- especially young ones -- consider religion an important part of their lives, churches across the country are adapting in occasionally bizarre ways in order to maintain their followings: A pastor in Kentucky last weekend invited his congregation to bring their unloaded firearms to his service in order to "send a message that there are legal, civil, intelligent and law-abiding citizens who also own guns" (who's clinging to guns and religion now?); a news service in central Florida provides an update on a "faith-based skate park" where tattooed preachers tend their kickflipping flocks between shred sessions; the Anglican Church in North America -- a conservative splinter group with tens of thousands of members that broke from the Episcopalian Church over the latter's acceptance of gay clergy -- held its first formal assembly in a Dallas suburb last week; and Triple Canopy provides us with a history of one of the modern age's most mind-boggling religious contrivances: the Mega-Church. [Read Post] - Posted: 06 | 29 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// BOILERPLATE
- Michael Jackson (1958-2009)
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The passing of the man who went from an overachieving Midwestern kid to the definition of global pop stardom is an indefinable event: Initial impressions were posted last week by some STOP SMILING regular contributors, including Michael A. Gonzales (read here) and Hua Hsu (read here); and though the tragedies of Michael's last two decades -- the flipside to the stunning work and iconography produced from the late Sixties until his peak in the mid-Eighties -- were often the source of wholesale mockery, we've compiled here a few classic moments of comedians celebrating the humanity and lighter side of the Jackson phenomenon, including early Eddie Murphy (view), Chris Tucker (view) and Dave Chappelle (view). [Read Post] - Posted: 06 | 29 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// OBIT
- Sensitivity Requests Amid Scandals
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"Are you having fun embarrassing me -- and ruining my life?" asked Ruth Madoff, wife of Bernard Madoff, while a New York Post photographer captured a snapshot of her seated on the New York City subway beneath an advertisement reading "99 cents does more" (view the image here); South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, while fumbling a national apology about how his mysterious disappearance was the front for an extramarital affair in South America, essentially stated he was entitled to be forgiven, at one point pleading that he "spent the last five days of my life crying in Argentina"; and Phil Spector, assigned to a sensitive needs facility after being convicted of murder, formally requested an iPod, TV or computer to pass the time during his prison term of 19 years to life. [Read Post] - Posted: 06 | 25 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// BOILERPLATE
- What, Me Worry?
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The mantra of Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman continues to apply to the day's events: Residents of Hawaii appear unfazed by North Korea's recent threat of nuclear attack on the island -- as an octopus-cooking interviewee put it to the NY Times, "You are going to go sometime, whether it's on a wave, or a missile, or your buddy knocking you down and you hit your head;" Meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens frames the current Iranian mess in the context of the mullahs' persistent worrying that Anglo-Saxons will be forever evilly meddling in their affairs, all the while chastising the Obama administration's nonplussed stance toward the situation: "Want to take a noninterventionist position? All right, then, take a noninterventionist position -- but also try to bear in mind that one day you will have to face the young Iranian democrats who risked their all in the battle and explain to them just what you were doing when they were being beaten and gassed;" Finally, the BBC notes in regard to yesterday's fatal train crash in Washington, DC, that transit officials may have adopted too Neuman-esque a stance when they ignored warnings from the National Transportation Safety Board in 2006 to replace the trains that wrecked. [Read Post] - Posted: 06 | 23 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// BOILERPLATE
- Back in the Land of Lincoln
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Ever since Barack Obama won the presidency, Chicago-style politics, for better or worse, have made Illinois a national laughing stock, even as the Windy City brain-trust of Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod and President Obama successfully guide the country's agenda; meanwhile, the fallout from ex-Governor "F-Bomb" Blagojevich's removal from office took a few new turns in the last week worth noting: First up, Roland Burris, the current junior senator from Illinois, it turns out, won't face a perjury charges over statements he made to state lawmakers investigating how he got his job; Blago's former chief fundraiser was sentenced Monday to three years in prison for "hiding the use of his company's money to pay thousands of dollars in gambling debts and other expenses;" and finally, Blago's wife Patti, survived another week in the jungle on the NBC reality show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here after beating out The Hills' Heidi Montag and former supermodel Janice Dickenson. [Read Post] - Posted: 06 | 22 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// BOILERPLATE
- The Heat Goes to Nevada's Head
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While the entire world will face the effects of global warming, an editorial published in today's Las Vegas Sun, titled "Brutal Century Ahead," reminds us that the American Southwest, with its already scorched and arid climate, looks forward to even less fun than most areas (this weekend's NY Times reminds us, though, that Hawaii is the only US state that faces a true existential threat from global warming); efforts in Nevada to fight global warming recently encountered a major setback, as opposition from the US Air Force shut down a company's plans to build one of the world's largest solar power plants near a top-secret base; while unemployment in Nevada hit its highest point ever last month (11.3 percent), a Canadian entrepreneur who sells jet-driven surfboards threatened to sue the state for $30 million dollars after being arrested at gunpoint; and artists from around the country have transformed Reno's roach motels into temporary roach galleries; (check out more on Nevada in the STOP SMILING Gambling Issue). [Read Post] - Posted: 06 | 22 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// GENERAL
- Life Was Hard, Then the Snakes Came
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Few things make tough times worse than plagues of snakes: Iraqis in the country's agricultural south have been tormented by drought, war, UN sanctions and lack of investment, and now dams upriver in Turkey and Syria have dried up the Tigris and Euphrates, worsening farming conditions and driving scores of snakes into villages where they attack people and buffalo; enemies of the Israeli military have a new weapon to fear -- it recently unveiled a robotic snake with a camera and microphone installed in its head that is being developed for combat missions; police in a Sierra Leone town have yet another worry besides patrolling the war-torn country, as up to 400 snakes, mostly cobras and vipers, occupy their headquarters; in India, however, members of the nomadic Vadi tribe continue their tradition of training children as young as four to become snake charmers (see pictures), even though the practice is officially banned in that country. [Read Post] - Posted: 06 | 16 | 2009 // Posted by: Stop Smiling
// BOILERPLATE