With January nearly gone, we're still casting a few lingering backward glances at 2006. The culture section turns thoughtful and introspective, and February is just around the corner. While you hunker down to wait out the remainder of winter, we offer you some food for the mind, heart, and spirit.
MUSIC
From Music Editor Connie Phillips:
Carlo Wolff declared last year A Geezer Year for Pop in his look back at the top ten albums of '06 because many of them were from long-time favorite artists. Check out his picks and the reasons why they made his list.
Why does Mat Brewster need so much Grateful Dead? He answers that question and takes a look at The Grateful Dead - Live At The Cow Palace in this exceptional music review.
BOOKS
From Books Editor Natalie Bennett:
Two very different ventures into history caught my eye this week. Ed Rust regularly finds a fascinating range of magazines to explore for BC Magazine, and this week he was checking out Antiques And The Arts Weekly. Ed provides a vivid picture of the nature of the publication, almost made me want to read it, even though I was put off antiques for life by a childhood of being dragged around antique shops.
Simon Barrett has meanwhile been looking at living history, interviewing the 89-year-old Dr George Baldwin, nuclear physicist, getting his thoughts on the (nearly) past century of research. Journalists are always told to go to the original source, and that's exactly what Simon did.
From Asst. Books Editor Gordon Hauptfleisch:
"Access doesn't equal insight," says Carlo Wolff in his incisive and expressive review of the wannabe insider's account, the "superficially irreverent, contrived revisiting of fact and rumor surrounding the making of Exile on Main Street." Refreshingly, Carlo has no sympathy for this kind of deviltry.
In his cohesive review of Dark Bargain - Slavery, Profits, and the Struggle for the Constitution, Matt Mitchell notes how the delegates who crafted the United States Constitution "wrestled with the issue of moral restraint versus the economic necessity of slavery." In addition to explicating conflicting impulses, Matt also alludes to the author's theories being "bolstered by in-depth facts." The same kind of substantial reinforcement in Matt's review shores up his analysis.
TV/FILM
From TV Editor TV and Film Guy:
Well, it's apparently not like 24, but apparently it's good anyway. Or, maybe it is like 24. No wait, it's not. Either way, Ray Ellis tells us all about Sleeper Cell: American Terror.
From Film Editor Lisa McKay:
As we continue to look back at the year in film, David Dylan Thomas offers up his own top ten and notes that most of them aren't going to have you leaving the theater whistling a happy tune.
Article comments
1 - Mat Brewster
Hey, thanks for the pick Connie!