More Songs About Feelings and Women

Stuart Murdoch recruited the other six members of Belle and Sebastian for their shared sensibility rather than their musical chops. The band provided the perfect accompaniment to Murdoch’s wistful, sometimes lisping voice. Swirling guitars and jaunty piano and horns sometimes created a deceptively upbeat counterpoint to his wry yet bleak wordplay but could also combine to create serotonin-lowering tunes reminiscent of the sadly beautiful songs of Morrissey and Nick Drake, two of Murdoch’s great influences.

Published: Jun 26, 2009
Length: 11 minutes (2,978 words)

Persian Puzzlement

Iran: What our spies don’t know

Author: Eli Lake
Source: New Republic
Published: Jul 15, 2009
Length: 4 minutes (1,142 words)

G.M., Detroit and the Fall of the Black Middle Class

When we talk about what the end of the U.S. auto industry will mean to thousands of autoworkers, we tend to have a specific image of that worker in mind: He’s a conservative white Democrat who lives in suburban Detroit, hangs out in his local union hall, belongs to a bowling league and owns a hunting cabin in the Upper Peninsula. This is the iconic American autoworker. In fact, as much as a fifth of the industry’s work force is African-American.

Published: Jun 24, 2009
Length: 32 minutes (8,051 words)

Billions Registered

Right now, there are no rules to keep you from owning a bitchin’ corporate name as your own Internet address.

Source: Wired
Published: Nov 1, 1996
Length: 13 minutes (3,364 words)

Jeff Buckley and His Band, An Oral History

Source: The Rumpus
Published: Jun 24, 2009
Length: 11 minutes (2,993 words)

Eight years and counting …

Osama bin Laden is believed to be in mountains on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. But is he any nearer to being captured?

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jun 25, 2009
Length: 8 minutes (2,064 words)

Rowdy Romance

I’m Very Unsettled at the Moment,’ Says Farrah Fawcett of Her Affair with Ryan O’Neal, ‘But I’m Happy’

Source: People Magazine
Published: May 11, 1981
Length: 6 minutes (1,594 words)

The Brangelina industry

Each week celebrity magazines breathlessly report yet another twist in the Jen-Brad-Angelina love triangle. But where do the stories come from? Are they ever true? And does that even matter?

Source: The Guardian
Published: Jun 24, 2009
Length: 11 minutes (2,835 words)

In the Coachella Valley, hope withers on the vine

Picking grapes in the Coachella Valley is still dirty and dangerous. In the region where the United Farm Workers’ first table grape contract was signed, the pay is less than it was 40 years ago.

Author: Mike Anton
Published: Jun 23, 2009
Length: 8 minutes (2,112 words)

A Friendly Chat: Stephen J. Cannell, Novelist, Co-Creator of ’21 Jump Street’ And ‘The A-Team’

Stephen J. Cannell is the creator of 40 television shows, including 21 Jump Street, The Rockford Files, The A-Team, and The Commish. “The hardest work of writing a book or a screenplay is plotting it, and I think that’s why so many writers choose not to do it. Because you sit there and you scratch your head and think, what am I going to do next? What’s the complication at the top of act two, how do I make the story more devastating than it appeared at the beginning, what are my adversaries doing, what’s their move, how do I keep them in motion instead of standing still, waiting to be caught.”

Source: The Awl
Published: Jun 24, 2009
Length: 7 minutes (1,825 words)