 | The Pope of Avant Garde He was the antithesis to innocence, a man who explored the lowest levels of druggie doom and survived to tell about it in a crisp, painful drawl. Now William S. Burroughs, the beat-generation icon best known for Naked Lunch, has gone to that great opium den in the sky. |
 | Body of Christ Auntie Christ -- it's almost cute, isn't it? But according to former X member Exene Cervenka, there's a lot more to her new band than a funny name: individuality, political outspokenness, and a violent rejection of mindless consumer culture. |
 | www.the.net.sucks Overstuffed search engines, rampant busy signals, and lamely voyeuristic web sites -- oh my! Is it our imagination or does the Internet suck? |
August 18 - August 25, 1997
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Archives galore! Our programmers have been working overtime so that every past, present and future Weekly Wire article can be searched and sorted by author, column or issue. Got a favorite writer? Look him/her up with the flick of a mouse.
Last week marked our tenth issue of Weekly Wire. Naturally we had a party,
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News & Opinion
Has the information superhighway become just another intellectual parking garage? After enduring countless busy signals, email spams, and newsgroup pyramid schemes, this author certainly thinks so. Also: Does an overemphasis on sports devalue the social progress of blacks? Is assisted suicide an insidiously coercive practice? And why are society's lifeguards being complacent about the presence of loan sharks? [7 articles]
Film & TV
Reviewers butt heads like rams over the urban conspiracy dramas Cop Land and Conspiracy Theory, providing opinions both pro and con about Mel Gibson's spastic paranoid and Sylvester Stallone's pudgy palooka. Also reviewed this week: The Van, Shall We Dance?, Kiss Me Guido, and Gregg Araki's Nowhere. Plus: weird rentals aplenty in our Video-A-Go-Go, Videodrome and Scanline sections! [10 articles]
Music
An interview with Exene Cervenka, the First Lady of Punk, explains her intention to revitalize the genre with the proudly political band Auntie Christ. Also: Garth Brooks may be America's top-selling artist and the first Southern boy to fill up Central Park, but can anyone take his music seriously? And: a writer pays fond tribute to Phil Ochs, the '60s protest singer whose works summarize a defining period of American history. [17 articles]
Arts & Leisure
Alaska: it's not just for oil anymore. According to this writer, the icy 49th state is a surreal paradise worthy of more than a few visits. So was Woolworth's, says this sad author, who laments the store's closing as the end of an era. Should he decide to drown his sorrows, we've got some inebriating links to help him on his way. Plus: Was the Bard a sexist pig? Shrew betcha.[9 articles]
Books
Goodbye, William S. Burroughs. The legendary Naked Lunch author spewed dry, wry wit despite living through years of self-destructive hell. A fan provides a personal take on the old junkie's strange world. Also: reviews of new books by Carolyn Haines, J. Robert Janes, Ellen Lupton, Thomas McNamee, and The Book of Zines. [8 articles]
Comics
Why nibble on Peanuts when you can gorge on Red Meat? [7 comics]
All the contributors to Weekly Wire, along with other AAN (Association of Alternative Newsweeklies) publications, can be read from this one easily accessible spot. Strongly recommended for bookmarking. [107 newspapers]
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