"Week after week, a remarkably diverse group of individuals -- including straights in suits, freaks, tattooed, shaved, and pierced punk rockers, misfits, overachievers, iconoclasts, near hermits, jocks, geeks, and quite a few more surprisingly normal folks than you’d expect (and that just describes some of the receptionists) -- have cooperated to create what has been, by turns, a scurrilous left-wing rag, an alternative newspaper, a comprehensive entertainment guide, and an award-winning news, arts, and culture magazine," writes Dave Watson in this week's issue of Vancouver's alt-weekly. From its debut in 1967, through charges of vagrancy and obscenity and a brief spell as a music publication, to its "respectable" present incarnation, the Straight's story reveals a dynamic relationship with "the social, political, and cultural history" of the Terminal City.

Continue ReadingGeorgia Straight Reaches 2,000 Issues and Counting

An April 16 Los Angeles Times article exploring the connection between "creative types" and museum security positions revealed that New York Press columnist Jim Knipfel once guarded the Guggenheim. Apparently, "it was a hellish job. Not only are you standing on your feet in one spot for eight or 10 hours, at the Guggenheim, you are at an angle." The L.A. Times also spoke to Karl Stevens, a graphic artist whose comics appear regularly in the Boston Phoenix. Stevens says he is "completely shameless," using his job guarding the Harvard University Art Museums as both a place to work on his projects and a first step into the art world.

Continue ReadingDo Alt-Weekly Staffers Make Good Museum Guards?

"Thirty years -- that's a lot of water under the bridge. And you know, the river seems to flow faster and faster," Isthmus founder and Publisher Vincent O'Hern writes on the occasion of the paper's third decennial. The Wisconsin capital's weekly has come a long way from its self-described "Laurel and Hardy go to press" beginnings, and O'Hern promises the staff will be "celebrating, reflecting and commemorating throughout the year."

Continue ReadingIsthmus: Covering Madison for 30 Years