By Bill WilliamsAfter remaining stable for generations, Americans’ body weight suddenly began to spiral upward in recent decades. The average weight for women in their 20s soared from 128 pounds in 1960 to 157 pounds in 2000.Those numbers are included in The End of Overeating, David A. Kessler’s fascinating new book exploring the causes of weight gain along with strategies to … [Read more...]
Arts feature: National Poetry Slam leaves streets sparkling with spoken words
Sierra DeMulder of the St. Paul-Soapboxing poetry slam team.(Photo by Katie Deits)By Chauncey Mabe For five days last week downtown West Palm Beach was the coolest place on earth.Or it at least it seemed that way during the 20th National Poetry Slam that brought 68 teams of mostly young poets to Clematis Street for a rolling competition that was part counterculture festival, … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Books: Ali shows deft plotting hand in ‘Kitchen,’ but overwrites like the Dickens
By Chauncey Mabe One of the knocks on modern literary fiction is that it seldom shows people at work, where, after all, most of us spend the preponderance of our time.And yet, as Monica Ali inadvertently demonstrates with In the Kitchen, it is possible to go too far in the opposite direction. Showing the tedium of a working life is one thing. Making it tedious for the reader is … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Poets gear up for next week’s national slam in West Palm
Illustration by Pat Crowley.By Paul LomartireSlammed by syntax. Pummeled by a poem.The world heavyweight championship of words delivered with attitude is headed for West Palm Beach in the form of the 20th annual National Poetry Slam Aug. 4 to 8.And yes, fans, this is a competition every bit as heated as baseball or boxing."This is blood, sweat and tears poetry delivered live … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: Lake Worth pub, writers’ group celebrate ‘Bloomsday’
James Joyce (1882-1941).By Marya SummersCelebrate the conjunction of genius and Guinness today at Brogue’s Irish Pub in Lake Worth, when Blue Planet Writers Room raises pints to honor James Joyce and his novel Ulysses.The 20th-century literary masterpiece tells an epic story of a single day – June 16, 1904 – in the life of a Dubliner named Leopold Bloom. Hence, June 16th is … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Books: Del Toro’s ‘Strain’ only a middling potboiler
By Chauncey MabeOne of the marvels of modern popular culture is the persistence of the vampire.You would think by now every conceivable variation on the undead, rising to drink the blood of the living, would have been dramatized to a point beyond cliché. And you would be right. Yet each year new vampire movies and novels sprout like mushrooms, many of them finding wide and … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Books: Cahill advocates passionately for Death Row ‘saint’
By Bill WilliamsDominique Green was 18 when Houston police arrested him in connection with a fatal shooting during a robbery. A jury that included no blacks convicted Green, an African-American, of capital murder. The court then sentenced him to death.Thomas Cahill, author of the best-seller How the Irish Saved Civilization, sees Green’s “monstrously unfair” trial as evidence … [Read more...]
ArtsBuzz: National Poetry Slam coming to West Palm in August
SlamCharlotte, last year's winner of the National Poetry Slam.(Photo by Katya Szabados)WEST PALM BEACH -- The National Poetry Slam, which since 1990 has seen writers hurling hexameters at each other in closely followed contests, will be held this year in West Palm Beach beginning in the first week of August.The slam is set for Aug. 4-8, and will pit roughly 80 teams of three to … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Books: ‘Departure Lounge’ the funniest of sad stories
By Aviva L. BrandtCanadian journalist Meg Federico woke up one day to find herself a member of the sandwich generation, torn between caring for her own young children in Nova Scotia and her elderly mother, who was descending into dementia in New Jersey.In her memoir, Welcome to the Departure Lounge: Adventures in Mothering Mother, Federico writes compellingly of the tug-of-war … [Read more...]
ArtsPaper Books: Picoult’s ‘Handle With Care’ is gripping, heartbreaking
Writer Jodi Picoult.By Aviva L. BrandtIt’s every mother-to-be’s worst nightmare: To find out that the baby she is carrying has a health condition that will cause it to either die at birth or face a life of excruciating pain and disability.In Handle With Care, her 16th novel, Jodi Picoult (pronounced PEE’-koh) takes her readers inside that nightmare, telling a heartbreaking … [Read more...]