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Literary Arts
Minnesota Malaise Meets New York Neurosis
The ellipsis, in grammatical terms, is what English teachers would call an “unsaid thought.” For therapists, the ellipsis is their bread and butter. Once the patient fills in the ellipsis, the job is theoretically done. The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt creates a panorama of characters that suffer from ellipsis override. More
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Galleries
The Legacy of Feminism
The question of what it means to be a woman might summon a few immediately stereotypical ideas (bras, lipstick, painful visits to the waxing salon), but at least in this generation, it’s becoming increasingly rare to find femaleness aligned with stalwart pronouncements of power or that dreaded “f” word: feminism. More
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Beauty
Treat Your Mama Right!
Okay, we know that when it comes to the scoop on where to get the best pedicure, massage or facial, you’re pretty much keeping mum unless one of your really close friends begs you hard enough for the name of the person responsible for your glowing visage. Normally, I’m all for keeping your beauty secrets on the D.L., but considering that Mother’s Day is coming up, it’s time to share the wealth with the person responsible for ensuring you have any sort of aesthetic inclinations at all. More
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Restaurants
Pan-Asian Cuisine in the FiDi
Dinner in the Financial District is usually a big-ticket, hopefully expensable, occasion -- the likes of Boulevard, Aqua, and One Market -- while affordable, low-key "neighborhood dining" alternatives seem as elusive as a certain one-horned mythical creature. That is until Unicorn Restaurant opened last fall. While dinner is an option and happy hour specials run throughout the week, lunch is when Unicorn, the sibling to Berkeley’s acclaimed pan-Asian outpost, is at its busiest. More
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Movies
The Tip of the Iceberg
It’s been nearly five years since we first witnessed the shocking photos of naked Iraqi prisoners being humiliated, tortured, and dehumanized in Abu Ghraib. It’s easy to look at these pictures and demonize the MPs in the photos (and the MPs responsible for the photos) and focus on this group of "bad apples". But, were these MPs just following the Standard Operating Procedure? How much do these photos really reveal? More
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Movies
When Masochism and Narcissism Collide
Watching first-time director Gil Kofman’s The Memory Thief is a singularly disquieting experience, but isn’t that the point? The film, which incorporates the videotaped testimonials of actual Holocaust survivors into its fictitious tale of a tollbooth collector fixated on concentration-camp atrocities, is not so much about Hitler’s systematic slaughter of the Jews as it is about wounded people struggling to cope with profound loss. More
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Movies
Mamet Gets in the Ring, With Uneven Results
David Mamet’s sharp, bruising dialogue has informed tales of desperate salesmen, murderous con artists and blue-collar labor leaders, men for whom hostility, if not the explicit threat of violence, is an ever-present workplace reality. Rarely has Mamet explored the fight game, as he does with mixed results in Redbelt, but careful observers will recognize in his latest thriller some of the characters and themes that have become staples of his hyper-masculine storytelling. More
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Movies
An Exceptional Coming-of-Age Tale
Written and directed by Garth Jennings (one-half of Hammer & Tongs, a music video and commercials directing/producing duo), Son of Rambow is an imaginative, occasionally daft, ultimately engrossing coming-of-age tale set in England during the 80s. With Gondry-inspired visuals, the best synth-pop tracks of the decade, note-perfect turns by its young cast, and an unfailingly honest, sometimes raw, depiction of teenagers and social cliques, Son of Rambow is easily one of most refreshingly original films to come along this year (or any year for that matter). More
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Movies
The Wachowskis Are Back
After a five-year hiatus, brothers Andy and Larry Wachowski (The Matrix trilogy) are back behind the camera with Speed Racer, the family-friendly, live-action adaptation of the 60s Japanese animation series (released in Japan as Mach GoGoGo). Their hiatus hasn’t lessened the Wachowski Brothers’ desire to create new worlds that exist only as binary code inside a server somewhere. Unfortunately, someone neglected to point out that moviegoers over the age of six will struggle to keep their attention from wandering during Speed Racer’s two hour-plus running time. More
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Music
SF Station Blows It Up
I guess white guys have the sarcastic rap game in hand and coming from the shadows of artists like Atmosphere and Sage Francis is Mac Lethal, and last Thursday night he brought it down at the Bottom of the Hill. With quirky flows and dope beats, Mac made me a fan; his nerdy stage persona was interesting but once his mouth was open you knew it was only a visual trick. More
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