Speak Out! recent blogs
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By Sparrow 07/06/08
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Pretty Much the Most Important Thing
By Bethany Saltman 06/23/08
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How do I Assess Risks versus Benefits of Treatment Options?- 3
By Puja Thomson 06/16/08
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By Sparrow 05/23/08
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By Sharon Nichols 05/22/08
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Dora Who?: On Raising a Weirdo
By Bethany Saltman 04/25/08
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What is the Sound of No Steps?
By David Aston-Reese 04/21/08
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By Trish Malone 04/04/08
Arts & Culture
Portfolio: Judith LinharesFrom a distance, Judith Linhares’s paintings are pure candy-coated fantasies. The colors strike you first, pinks and purples, phosphorous greens, aqua- and ultramarines. | 
Art Review: Idyll RichTo think that a rich, young American couple could have inspired great art in a variety of media on two continents through the sheer force of their personalities and lifestyle is almost beyond imagination. | 
La Vie En RoseThe Real Food Film Series takes a turn from the political to the sublime on September 7 with Garlic is as Good as Ten Mothers, director Les Blank’s 57-minute-long ode to garlic, the “stinking rose.” |
The House Strained Peas BuiltThe centerpiece of the collection is a first-rate group of Winslow Homer paintings and watercolors, followed by a strong collection of works from the “Ash Can School,” urban realists working in the early 20th century. | 
Irish Symphonyn 1607, a pair of powerful Irish noblemen fled Ireland to seek help against the tightening grip of English domination. Robinson McClellan used the earls’ travels and travails to structure his piece. | 
River KeeperAnnea Lockwood has created an “aural journey” from the river’s source—the beautifully named Lake Tear of the Clouds, in the high peaks of the Adirondacks—to its terminus in New York harbor. | 
Joshing AroundToday the Great Josh Billings RunAground draws more than 400 teams made up of one, two, three, or four people, most of them wearing spandex and sporting state-of-the-art shoes, bikes, canoes, and kayaks. |
It's an Ed ThingThe first thing to know about the band Eddie from Ohio, is that, yes, there is an Eddie but, no, he’s not from Ohio. | 
Portfolio: Richard MerkinThe great thing about being an artist is this: All the things you’ve done, all the pictures you’ve made, they’ll stay and say what you wanted to say. | 
Living Blues TreasureNot only is Honeyboy Edwards alive, kicking, and sharp as a fresh toothpick, he’s on the road, making a rare and not-to-be-missed stop at the Rosendale Cafe on September 8. | 
Witness to HistoryRon Haviv’s photo of a Serb militiaman kicking a dying Muslim woman in the head—published a week before the fighting started—became one of the most enduring images of the Balkan conflict. |
The Good WordSpoken-word performance, the artform so identified with Manhattan’s East Village of poverty, drug addiction, and AIDS, has once again inched its way up the Hudson. | 
Waxing PoeticThe encaustic boom is going strong. “Encaustic Works 2007,” R&F Encaustic’s biannual juried exhibition, was chosen from approximately 3,000 entries, by the artist Joan Snyder. | 
One Heck of a HootenannyDan Zanes is not afraid to employ lap steel, trombone, saxophone, tambourine, mandolin, accordion, balalaika, tuba, tin whistle, fiddle, or anything else that helps step up the fun. | 
Public OpinionWhat started as an editorial assignment to document public opinion about the US invasion of Iraq turned into a project examining how people are misinformed and confused by news and governmental spin on the war. |
Food & Drink
Sometimes You Want to Go
The Blue Plate Restaurant is one of those rarities that possess a definitive but indescribable essence—what’s known in Latin as genius loci, or “spirit of place.”
Books
Writing His Way Home
Like the disadvantaged tooth fairy in his latest novel, hatched parentless in an old tin can, author Gregory Maguire had a rough start.
Short TakesReviews of books by Dr. Lewis Marola, Naton Leslie, Jon Katz, Paul Grondahl, and Bruce Piasecki. | 
Book Reviews: The Family DiamondSchwarzschild’s new short story collection provides real emotional, intellectual, and aesthetic nourishment, never offering simplistic resolutions to complex situations. | 
Book Reviews: When Madeline Was YoungWhen Madeline Was Young is conceptually imaginative and potentially haunting, yet Madeline’s unique world failed to materialize in that ethereal transit zone between page and heart. | 
Perennial VoyagerThere are few laudatory adjectives that critics haven’t applied to John Ashbery’s 26 books of poetry; “dazzling,” “sublime,” and the like become shopworn. |
Book Reviews: TrashedTrashed is a delightful romp through the sordid and deliciously sleazy world of the Hollywood tabloid media machine and the seriously neurotic, occasionally psychotic stars who feed it. | 
Book Reviews: Russian Lover and Other StoriesA well-done short story feels miraculous, the selection of just the right moments and details to create an entire reality in a bite-sized handful of pages. Woodstock author Jana Martin gets it right. | Book Reviews: Land of Stone: Breaking Silence Through PoetryKaren Chase begins her preface by calling Land of Stone “a story of silence and kinship.” It is also a story about love, healing, and the redemptive power of poetry—and it is unlike anything you’ll ever read. |
Lucid Dreaming
The Future of an Illusion
Documenta 12 has been subject to some of the most scathing criticism I’ve ever seen for a major art exhibition (aside from a few editions of the Whitney Biennial).