Nurse Jackie Is at Its Most Dramatic This Season
Nurse Jackie is starting its sixth season and this year the drama is out in full force. At times it is almost operatic in its passion and its heartbreak. Edie Falco and Merritt Weaver continue to head...
View ArticleTonight at the Movies: '64 Underground NYC Film The Troublemaker by Buck...
Tonight Anthology Film Archives' "Lost Legends of New York" delivers The Troublemaker, which is triply: a wry, dry, send-up of la vie de Bohème, a subversive slapstick on The Establishment and how this...
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Only Lovers Left Alive's Tilda Swinton Talks About Almost Quitting Acting and...
Twenty-five years ago, I saw a barefoot Tilda Swinton do a whirling dervish in front of a bonfire in The Last of England, and predicted she would one day win an Oscar. Before we begin, herewith, a...
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Chuck E.'s Still in Love: Chatting with Chuck E. Weiss, Plus an Ariana & The...
A Conversation with Chuck E. Weiss Mike Ragogna: [sings] "If it ain't that old Chuck E. Weiss." Chuck E. Weiss: Oh, you like that, huh? MR: Between Tom Waits' "I Wish I Was In New Orleans" and Rickie...
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10 Royal Recipes for a Game of Thrones Feast
We have a confession to make. For all our talk of warm-weather eating, we're about to break our cardinal food rule: forget those sunny pastas and springtime veggies -- this weekend, we feast like...
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Cinefantastique Spotlight Podcast: Oculus
How frustrating is it when a film has all the stuff it needs -- promising premise, good production values, decent cast, director who can twist filmic reality in imaginative ways -- and just... doesn't...
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What's Your Story?
So, Chris, what's your story? I'm an auricular raconteur and sonic archeologist. I listen to old 78s that were recorded before our parents were born, and these old records speak to me sometimes. My job...
View ArticleThe Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and What It Really Means
I was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame with my band Talking Heads in 2002. We performed together at the induction ceremony for the first time in 18 years, since our lead singer had...
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On Solange, Beyoncé and National Siblings Day
"A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost." --Marion C. Garretty Sunday morning I woke up to a video of sisters Solange and Beyoncé dancing joyfully together on stage at Coachella....
View ArticleThe Etiquette of Author Radio Interviews
Congratulations! You've done your first radio interview (or you've completed your first flurry of radio interviews), and you're hoping to leverage that accomplishment and build long-term, mutually...
View ArticleHousing Works Is Helping to Heal the Human Race
I once saw an interview with Diamanda Galas in which she showed on her fingers the tattooed words, "I am HIV positive." She had done this, she said, because she felt that the worldwide AIDS and HIV...
View ArticleRuPaul's Drag Race and the Danger of Overpolicing Language
"Tranny," "sissy," "sex change," and "she-male" are self-identifying slang words used by gender-nonconforming people -- mostly performers, artists, sex workers, and others considered to be living on...
View ArticleWhat I Learned From Miley Cyrus
Last week, I saw Miley Cyrus in concert at the Verizon Center in D.C. and what a crash course in modern culture it was. Wake up, Marion Winik, it is 2014 and we are going all in! Having begun my own...
View ArticleYe Olde Breaking Bad: Confessions of a Binge Watcher
Breaking Bad is ancient, TV history by now, and at the same time I need to say, "spoiler alert." Weird... I'm toward the end of a Breaking Bad binge, so to me there are two kinds of people in the...
View ArticleMad Men Premiere, as Tweeted
Sunday night was the season premiere of Mad Men -- the final season, I should say. With so much hype, you'd think we were gearing up for the Super Bowl. But honestly other than the big game, this is...
View ArticleASL Goes Viral
Last week, Jimmy Kimmel hosted a "sign language rap battle" where hip-hop interpreters Holly Maniatty, Amber Galloway, and deaf entertainer Jo Rose Benfield each delivered their live interpretation of...
View ArticleMy Experiences and Goals as a Science Advisor for Breaking Bad
When I first began helping with science on Breaking Bad, I knew that there were few chemists assisting TV shows in this way. Yet I thought it was critical to build a bridge between scientists and the...
View ArticleLessons Learned in Boston: Creative Arts Expression As a Path Toward Recovery...
It's been a year. Despite four deaths, a few hundred injured, and a merciless attack on our city's sense of safety and security, Boston is stronger now than it was before the bombs went off. The city...
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The Cream Rises
The cream rises. Not always and not as quickly as we might sometimes like -- but eventually, good work is found and disseminated, if not always celebrated. This thought came to me as I tried to sort...
View ArticleBrave New Girl: Sarah Dooley Debuts With Stupid Things
For Sarah Dooley, doing stupid things has been a genius move. The winsome young artist became a YouTube sensation in 2008 when she created And Sarah, a comic webseries centered around the college...
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