Liberty by Garrison Keillor Viking, 267 pp. Near the end of Liberty, Clint Bunsen, an aging auto mechanic and chairman of Lake Wobegon’s annual Fourth of July Parade, continues his booklong fantasy of escaping to California with a free-spirited, sexually open young woman he has met named Angelica Pflame: [T]hey’d find a little seaside town […]
Adam Sobsey
Bio: Adam Sobsey (@sobsey) writes about wine and culture for INDY Week.Twitter: http://twitter.com/sobsey
Posted inBooks
David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008
David Foster Wallace may be forever remembered as The Footnote Guy, and not without reason. His prolixity reached even into the small-print margins, and tempus tacendi never seemed to occur to him. Yet language was much more than unrefined fuel for the revving engine of his thought. Although he often got carried away with words, […]
Posted inCulture
Tampa overrun by Bulls
If you’re sad that the Bulls season is over, you might want to turn your attention to the Tampa Bay Rays, the Bulls’ parent club, who have quickly morphed into Durham South. Major league rosters expanded to 40 players from 25 on September 1st, as they do each season, and the Rays seem to have […]
Posted inCulture
Objects in minors may be closer than they appear
Before the Bulls played last night’s (season-ending) game against Scranton, I wrote that this was a chance to see the young Yankee phenom Phil Hughes in action before “his inevitable return to the Bronx next year.” After watching Hughes strike out a staggering 12 Bulls in just five inningsa pace that would have had him […]
Posted inCulture
Aura & Mystique, and who’s Hughes?
During the 2001 World Series, the Arizona Diamondback pitcher Curt Schilling was asked about the New York Yankees’ “aura and mystique.” Schilling replied that Aura and Mystique were names of exotic dancers, and nothing more. And even though the Yankees pulled off two mystical, aura-ringed comebacks in that series, the Diamondbacks won it. Their Game […]
Posted inCulture
When Jonny Gomes marching home
Jonny Gomes is a lot of fun to watch at the plate. He’s a truly professional hitter: aggressive but canny, potent, and rarely cheatedeven when he strikes out, which is often, he takes a big meaty cut. Gomes has a classic power hitter’s build, with strong legs and sturdy weight that is centered in his […]
Posted inCulture
Durham Bulls: Things you don’t see every day
Playoffs. Had you been dropped into the DBAP by helicopter this weekend from, say, Saskatchewan, you would have had a hard time recognizing that you were watching a playoff series. The crowds were sparse, and the energy — on the field and in the stands — was sluggish and somnolent. Unbeknownst, apparently, to most of […]
Posted inArt
Clyde Edgerton’s new novel, The Bible Salesman
The Bible Salesman By Clyde Edgerton Little, Brown, 241 pp. Early in Clyde Edgerton’s The Bible Salesman, Henry Dampier, the 20-year-old peddler in question, volunteers to bury the freshly dead cat of a potential customer. He reaches under the house and pulls out the poor pussycat, then recoils when he discovers a dead snake hanging […]
Posted inArt
An Indiana of the mind in Haven Kimmel’s new novel
Iodine By Haven Kimmel Free Press, 240 pp. The word crazy mustn’t be thrown around casually. It contains all sorts of vague assumptions about what constitutes normalcy; it ostracizes genius; and it confines people to arbitrary categories. Invention, and thus the progress of humanity, derives from a certain kind of craziness. War is crazy, but […]
Posted inFilm & Television
The bad boys of summer
Read more of our Bull Durham 20th anniversary package: Introduction • Deleted scenes and extras • Bullshitty: A contrarian view • My life as a Bull The Most Exciting Baseball Game I Ever Saw lasted 17 innings and five hours, around Labor Day of 1984. It happened at Durham Athletic Park, the DAPnot the DBAP, […]