zapped!
Los Angeles Reader
After years underground fighting censors, painter Robert Williams emerges into the mainstream—and gets clobbered by a new set of critics.
(Cover story; 15,000 words)
joyce to the world
Los Angeles Reader
William Joyce, the superstar of children’s-book illustration, presents an enchanting gallery show. (Profile/art review; 1,200 words)
nonuments
San Francisco Bay Guardian
“A nonument is anti-epic. It celebrates the greatness of those who are not great. Of events that are not events. Of moments that are not momentous...”
(Essay; 1,200 words)
the birth and death of one who never was
The San Francisco Review of Books
A short-short novel that ponders the unlikelihood of existence.
(Fiction; 850 words)
women in film inching forward
USA Today
An organization for women in “the industry” is creating a kind of old girl’s club via a mentoring program and efforts to launch training programs at major studios and TV networks.
(Feature; 450 words)
bilingual teaching assistants fighting for rights
CSUN
Claiming they’re being exploited by the Los Angeles Unified School District, representatives of the district’s ten thousand teaching assistants go before the Board of Education to demand equal treatment and benefits.
(News story; 1,000 words)
musicians go rockin' in new terrain: asia
USA Today
Peter Mensch, comanager of metal band Metallica, sets the scene from a pay phone somewhere in Singapore, one stop on the band’s recent tour: “I’m telling you,” he shouts, “this is the wild, wild West right now ... You know, ‘Space: The Final Frontier’? Southeast Asia: The Final Frontier!”
(Cover story; 1,200 words)
signs’ language
Movies USA
Lily Tomlin scores some filmic points about humanity and our lack of it in The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe.
(Feature; 500 words)
designers step from shadows at digital duel
CNET News.com [external link]
At the Cut&Paste Digital Design Tournament, digital designers of all stripes go head-to-head in front of a live audience.
(Cover package; intro and two photo essays)
cover letter
ZYZZYVA
“Your form letter is very kind—the most generous and thoughtful I’ve yet received. In fact, if I ever write a story that includes mention of these infamous letters (so well known, alas, to us writers), I’ll most certainly include an excerpt of your letter in my piece..."
(Fiction; 1,800 words)
look skyward, angel
Los Angeles Reader
Ironically, though he grew up listening to his parents tell of their lives in the World War II relocation camps for Japanese-Americans, historian-photographer John Tonai never realized the significance of this major event in his people’s history.
(Profile/art review; 1,200 words)
pixar artists on holiday
CNET News.com
We recently discovered what Pixar storyboard artists do on their day off. And it's shocking.
(Feature; 500 words)
arc/dream
Fourteen Hills
“A single stray dog trots down the street, a silhouette cruising along the circles of light cast by the lamps. The ticking of its claws on the pavement sparks up through a window and into the dream of the woman sleeping there...”
(Fiction; 3,000 words)
noir town
Los Angeles Reader
More spectacle has surrounded “Helter Skelter: L.A. Art in the 1990s” then any other exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Does the show really deserve all the hype?
(Feature/art review; 1,200 words)
san francisco city guide
MuseumNetwork.com
Since the Gold Rush, with its promise of nuggets in the streets, to recent years, with the allure of beatnik cool, hippie freedom, radical sexuality, and pedal-to-the-metal high-tech innovation, San Francisco has been a magnet for seekers, celebrators, movers, and shakers.
(City guide; 5,600 words)
mainstream ‘devotion’ grows for depeche mode
USA Today
Depeche Mode is the latest example of a recent phenomenon: veteran English angst/dance bands that finally outgrow cult status in America and claim a chunk of the mainstream.
(Cover package; 600-word main bar, with sidebars)
sing along with c-span
CNET News.com
Media artist Barbara Lattanzi’s experimental “C-SPAN Karaoke” software pulls streaming video clips from C-SPAN’s public archives and combines them with free karaoke songs scavenged from the Web. The effect is fascinating, and, at least in some cases, eerie.
(Feature; 450 words)
fish magic
CNET News.com
What do you get when you combine a custom-developed Java server, a laptop computer, some Flash software, and a little XML—with 16 fish? If you’re Julie Freeman, you get art.
(Feature; 400 words)
