Early on in the Japanese animated film Princess Mononoke, a monk soaked in street-hustler wiliness admonishes the young warrior Ashitaka with the observation that &#
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Photo by Charlie Gross
IN 1970, I SAW BLACK SABBATH, FUNKADELIC, THE Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin and more all on the same bill at an open-air three-day rock f
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Ponce de Leon had his Fountain of Youth, Ahab his whale, Columbus his islands of spice. Dr. Leakey spent half of his life looking for a bone or two. I once met a bot
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Illustration by Mike LeeABOUT 15 YEARS AGO, MY HIGH SCHOOL CIVICS TEACHER (who would later be arrested in front of the class for refusing to pay income tax) invited
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The moment you enter the heavy, padded leather doors, you’re engulfed in a cozy darkness that’s dramatically punctuated by horseshoe-shaped lacquer-red booths, a
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Photo by Robert Yager
Deputy City Attorney Brooke White began a recently filed court motion with the words “There is something terribly wrong in Oakwood.”
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Photo by K. C. Bailey
WEIGHED AGAINST OUR WRETCHEDLY HEEDLESS age, John Sayles' humane populism guarantees that each new film he makes seems more old-fash
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Illustration by TL Ary
It is three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and 105° and the air so thick with smog that the dusty palm trees loom up with a sudden and r
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FOR A CERTAIN KIND OF PERSON WHO CAME OF age in the 1930s, the English poet W.H. Auden played a role similar to the one Bob Dylan would play in the 1960s, if for a f
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Photo by Slobodan Dimitrov
In the beginning, the mysterious seismic-retrofit project in San Bernardino bore the unmistakable aroma of congressional pork. Thr
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Illustration by Mike Lee
Did you miss the “science wars”? While the “culture wars” provoked endless controversy, setting vocal champions of m
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I can't speak for my colleagues, but for me 1998 was a year filled with tedious melodrama, warmed-over camp and unfulfilled promises. And then there was the thea
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