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S.I. ROSENBAUM

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Roman Totenberg's last bow

"A remarkable death"
Roman Totenberg is teaching a lesson.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | May 07, 2012

Bechdel looks at her mom, Abrams packages the Garbage Pail Kids, and Corman’s new graphic novel, Unterzakhn

Serious funnies
For years, I faithfully followed Alison Bechdel's comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For , an ongoing lesbian soap opera with a huge cast of characters, all of them vivid and realized.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | April 04, 2012

A Far Cry rocks harder than your favorite band. But can they save classical music from itself?

A young person's guide to the orchestra
Night falls in Jamaica Plain. The drunks are flicking cigarettes on the sidewalk outside the Jeanie Johnston pub; on the corner, Santería devotees are buying candles at the Botanica San Miguel. And in between, in a leased storefront, 17 classical musicians are losing their fucking minds to Haydn.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | February 23, 2012

The director of Immortals could be Hollywood's most misunderstood blockbuster auteur

Tarsem revealed
When I first saw the trailer for Immortals, I wondered how Tarsem's newest film would be misinterpreted.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | November 30, 2011

Voices carry

Marty hears things that aren't there. Doctors say she's schizophrenic. A new movement says she's just human.
She can hear a baby crying. She searches the house, each cluttered room, the closets, under the bed. She checks the cupboards. She checks behind the shower curtains. There is no baby.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | October 21, 2011

In his new graphic novel, Craig Thompson wins an argument with God

Illuminated manuscript
This book is a gorgeous object; to make it, Thompson apparently covered himself in honey and rolled around in a thousand years of Arabic calligraphy and Islamic art, and the result is breathtaking — the amount of ink expended on one resplendent panel after another, not to mention the virtuoso draftsmanship, speaks of hundreds of hours of hard work.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | August 31, 2011

Cruelty, compassion, and a capuchin, a decade later

The baby in the box
I had tried not to look at the monkey's tits — the result, Janet told me later, of a glandular disorder. They bounced whenever the monkey moved. If you shaved them, they would have been a pretty nice set.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | August 04, 2011

Carla Speed McNeil's magic city

Finder keeper
You arrive in Anvard as an immigrant. The city is vast and perplexing, full of its own signs and codes, but little by little you learn its language.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | July 01, 2011

Boston Phoenix interview with Lynda Barry

Lynda Barry in search of the image world

Drawing the line
Drawing the line

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | April 13, 2011

Life during wartime

NGO big or go home
In Fallujah, Marine Captain Rye Barcott got good at separating the two parts of his soul.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | April 06, 2011

Make It So: 7 of the geekiest sex toys ever made (NSFW)

To boldly go
It's a common misconception that nerds don't have sex. On the contrary. Nerds have more sex, and weirder sex, than you're having.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | February 10, 2011

Review: Undertow

A story of loss
It would be best if you went to this movie knowing nothing about it so that it could simply unfold for you.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | February 03, 2011

Interview: The authors of Future Boston on building the Boston of tomorrow

Future Boston, 15 years later
We only have three years before the aliens land. This was the future envisioned in Future Boston , an anthology by a group of local science-fiction writers published in 1995 .

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | January 21, 2011

To boldly go ... to Framingham: A trek to fan con Super Megafest

Super Megafest offers the relics of our escapist fantasies. Make it so.
The entire 20th century is crammed into a ballroom in the Sheraton hotel.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | January 05, 2011

MIT Kinects with the Future

Philip K. Dicking Around
Here in the future, we don't just have park lights that run on dog poop; we're so advanced that cutting-edge technology occasionally shows up in the toy aisle at Wal-Mart.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | December 15, 2010

Review: The Tempest

Taymor fails to cast a spell
There are so many ways to stage The Tempest. Shakespeare's last and strangest play can be a meditation on aging, an exploration of S&M power dynamics, a critique of Western imperialism.

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | February 24, 2011