Last week (or was it the week before?), on my way into school, I was listening to NPR when I heard that Robert Altman had passed away. We'd just watched a print of his Nashville the week before for class, and his passing saddened me much more than most celebrity deaths. He seemed like such an avuncular soul, and perhaps his death resonates so much because he was a director sui generis. Who else could have made Nashville? And who would've thought that Emilio Estevez, of all people, would try to channel Altman and Nashville?

Can you spot all 75 bands represented in this photo?

What policy issues do most economists agree on?

I saw Mabou Mines DollHouse tonight, a truly unconventional adaptation of Ibsen's A Doll's House, source of the most famous door slam in literary history. In this Lee Breuer version, all the male characters are played by little people, none taller than four and a half feet. The women, on the other hand, are played by very tall women. I don't see much avant-garde theater, but I recognize it when I see it. The only Ibsen play I've read is Hedda Gabler, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Krogstadt doesn't get a blow job from Kristine in Ibsen's original text. And I can't imagine another production of this play that could elicit more laughter. Not all of Breuer's choices spoke to me, but it's been a while since I've seen a production with as many ideas that got me thinking long after I'd left the theater.

Yep, there's no shortage of Obama 2008 paraphernalia at Cafe Press.

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