DC punk legends Fugazi were as much of a movement as they were a group of musicians. With practices like refusing interviews to magazines that had alcohol and cigarette ads and an insistence on low door costs at all of their shows, they defied just about every notion of what it means to be a successful musical act in the modern world. For those of us who grew up with them, they stood for everything that punk rock was supposed to be about. So when we heard about this upcoming book of photographs of the band, all taken by veteran photographer Glen E. Friedman, it took us about a half a second to click “pre-order”. A little bit of Stop Smiling trivia: Ian Mackaye’s Dischord label was the first paying advertiser back when we were a fanzine. They even wrote us a note. And guess what? We kept it.

This coming Labor Day, Jack Kerouac’s classic coming-of-age “road novel,” On the Road, turns 50. To celebrate the half-century mark next week, Viking is releasing a 50th anniversary edition. Moreover, the Library of America series is publishing a collection of Kerouac’s novels in one, hard-bound volume, and for the first time, the original version of the book, typed on a 120-foot scroll, will also find its way onto bookshelves this fall. The autobiographical novel that follows Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady) on their cross-country sojourns looking for “kicks” still sells 100,000 copies a year.

Last weekend in Chicago at Wicker Park’s Chopin Theatre, the Chicago Cinema Forum hosted a two-day tribute to the late Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, screening five of the director’s feature films, and the three-part documentary Bergman Complete. A week after his critical editorial about Bergman ran in the NY Times, Jonathan Rosenbaum introduced Sawdust and Tinsel, and led a discussion afterward. This past Sunday in the Times, Woody Allen responded with his appreciation of Bergman.

In a 1967 Time magazine cover story (“The New Cinema: Violence… Sex… Art…”) featuring the film Bonnie and Clyde, Cahiers du Cinema‘s editor at the time, Jean-Louis Comolli, wrote that “traditionally, film was a form of amusement — a distraction. It told a story. Cinema is no longer enslaved to a plot. The story becomes simply a pretext.” The article singles out the rise of the TV culture as the agent of change in movies. “When they are born with a TV set in their room,” said Roman Polanski, “you can’t fool them anymore.” NY Times film critic AO Scott writes about the controversy that Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde caused when the film was released 40 years ago this summer, and compares it against the violent horror films of today.

The Architect Karl Rove, whose blueprints called for a permanent GOP majority, has jumped ship, announcing his resignation by the end of August.

In other footnotes, former Cabinet member Tommy Thompson has abandoned his presidential bid.

Manchester music legend Tony Wilson — broadcaster, pop impresario, founder of Factory Records and worldwide advocate for bands like Joy Division, A Certain Ratio and the Happy Mondays — has died. Wilson, who put Manchester on the map and was immortalized by actor Steve Coogan in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, passed away after a heart attack on Thursday. His wit and total recall is evident in this 1988 clip. Mancunians mourn.

The current issue of MovieMaker magazine takes a hard look at the future of filmmaking, with such ominous headlines as “Judgment Day For Movie Theaters?”. Even one of the art form’s most persuasive boosters, Francis Ford Coppola, has moments of doubt, declaring: “The movie business is not a good business to be in.” We highly anticipate Coppola’s return to the director’s chair with two new projects, after a 10-year absence.

Today authors Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt announced they’re bringing the Freakonomics craze to the (web)pages of the NY Times with a new blog. The move comes just in time for the Times‘ own brush with Freakonomics: raising the paper’s cover price while settling into their new 52-story headquarters, designed by world-renowned architect Renzo Piano.

It’s no secret we like Pelican. They play great music, they’re great guys and we always love seeing hometown bands catch on worldwide. We’ve been singing their praises for years in the magazine, but no amount of kudos could ever measure up to props they received from none other than “Metal God” Rob Halford. Halford, the singer of Judas Priest, gave the Pelican boys a nod while doing a radio interview (listen here). In the metal world, that’s more or less the equivalent of being a poet and having Shakespeare tell you he was impressed by your poems (if Shakespeare wore leather and sold 35 million albums). Pelican is on tour across the US, then Australia and Japan. Catch them if you can.

While we live with the agonizing daily headlines out of Iraq, Charles Ferguson’s documentary No End In Sight, currently playing in NY and LA and expanding next week, takes us back to the catastrophic opening stages of the war, when poor post-war planning, bureaucratic procrastination and over $12 billion in damages after the US neglected to calm widespread looting proved insurmountable. Not only do we learn that only 1/3 of Iraqi civilian deaths are reported, but also that the estimate of the war’s total cost — from lost oil revenue to lifelong care for US veterans — could reach $1.86 trillion. The film is an endurance test, and essential viewing.