26 February 2010

The last days of Moscow's angriest alternative newspaper, The Exile

Vanity Fair has a good article of the final days of Matt Taibi and Mark Ames’ Exile newspaper in Moscow.

In its time The Exile was arguably the most abusive, defamatory, un-evenhanded, and crassest publication in Russia, and Ames and his staff had paid for that fact, or at least for the fact that they were arrogant reprobates, many times before. Columnist Edward Limonov, the 66-year-old political provocateur in whom the Federal Service officials were particularly interested, filed his copy from prison for two years after being convicted of possessing arms, which he admits he intended to smuggle into Kazakhstan in an effort to incite a coup there. Writer Kevin McElwee, an American expatriate, had both legs broken when he was torn from the side of a building he was scaling to escape an angry mob of Muscovites, an incident that had nothing to do with anything he’d written.

A picture of every page of the fourth edition of the London Weekly

I never did find a copy of the third edition. If you did, would you please contact me here. As usual, I picked this up at Holborn Station at 7:30 am.

24 February 2010

» How to start a container garden

I’m posting this to remind myself. We have a tiny and dangerous balcony off the bedroom that would be perfect for falling to one’s death and growing tomatoes. This year will be the year that something actually grows.

23 February 2010

Why are coups always led by colonels?

The short version: They have a taste of power but not enough fiscal incentives not to rock the boat. This short article in Foreign Policy lays it all out.

Ted Rall looking to his readers to fund his return to Afghanistan

We ran Ted Rall periodically in Terminal City, often his pieces on Afghanistan. The actual trips were paid for by major media outlets – we just paid his bargain-by-comparison column fee.

Now he wants go back back and he has set up a fund for readers to pay for it.

19 February 2010

No sign of London Weekly #3 yet

Although the website of the London Weekly says the third edition has been released, we have been unable to find it at our usual locations.

All staff of RevMoonbeam remain on high alert. Hit Twitter #revmoonbeam or contact above if you have any leads.

18 February 2010

Or is it Phantom of the Paradise?

Doesn’t this description of the sequel to Phantom of the Opera, Love Never Dies, sound a lot like the plot to Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park?

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man

This is a first rate profile with the last of the great reviewers.

12 February 2010

A picture of every page of the second edition of the London Weekly

It seems that finding actual copies of the London Weekly is still a problem, so I’m posting the photos of the second issue. I picked mine up at Holborn Station at 7:30 am (after checking Oxford Circus at 7:20). The vendor was friendly but wasn’t forthcoming on anything. When I asked how I could get a job as a London Weekly vendor, he said that all the information was inside the paper. It wasn’t.

10 February 2010

New Yorker's 85th Anniversary covers

There is a secret image hidden in the four New Yorker covers commissioned to Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, Adrian Tomine, and Ivan Brunetti.

PLUS: A bonus story by Chris Ware on Rea Irvin, the New Yorker’s first art director.

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