I’m not sure how I first learned about The Week. I think I received a trial issue in the mail. But after just one or two issues we were hooked. The Week is a comprehensive newsweekly, although it offers virtually no original reporting. It collates news stories and offers opinions from a variety of sources: newspapers, online magazines, political journals etc. And it provides opinions from across the political spectrum.
Each issue has the same set up (although they recently had an image makeover: a new cover design and some unexpected font changes in a few sections, which I suppose does lend to an easier read).
Each issue starts with The main stories… …and how they were covered. The first article is a look at whatever major story captivated the editorials that week. (The growing gloom in Afghanistan). And in a general sense of what you get for long articles (the long articles are about 3/4 of a page) You get WHAT HAPPENED, WHAT THE EDITORIALS SAID, and WHAT THE COLUMNISTS SAID. The What Happened section is a paragraph or two summary of the story. The editorials offer a one or two sentence summary from sources like USA Today, L.A. Times and The Financial Times, while The Columnists are from The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and Time.com, for example. (more…)
Mental Floss
Next comes the ubiquitous letters. This also contains the occasional feature of Readers and Their Famous Friends, which shows pictures of readers celebrities (pretty much the only celebrities they ever talk about). This is followed by the letter from the editor. Neely Harris (I have yet to determine if Neely is a boy or a girl and I’m not going to look it up either, somehow it’s more fun trying to imagine) is very funny and always sets a good tone for the magazine. 
SOUNDTRACK: GARBAGE-Garbage (1995).
I was thinking about how IJ reminds me so specifically of a place and time (I instantly think of the apartment I was in when I started reading it). And there are also some discs that I was crazy about at the time too.
It is incredible serendipity that I did the JOI filmography during this week as this week’s readings actually count on knowing a bit about it. And since I had just reevaluated it, I was aware of a thing or two during Hal’s viewing scene.
Week 10 starts off seeming like a lot of nothing is happening. There’s a few post-Event scenarios. Until we get to November 14th, and a whole lot goes on. A whole lot! 
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-SYR 4: Goodbye 20th Century (1999). 
This SYR recording consists of Sonic Youth’s interpretations of 20th century composers’ works. Some of the composers are obscure, but a few are more or less household names: John Cage, Yoko Ono, maybe Steve Reich. I knew a few of these composers from Kronos Quartet, but for the most part the pieces are all new to me. Since I don’t know the original pieces I have no idea how faithful they are.
It took me going to Seattle to learn about 
ten. For reasons known only to my head, I was convinced that Sasha was a black woman. Little did I realize that he is not. And that he was in a band that I have a CD of called Ui. He is an excellent resource for all things music, whether I like the artist he’s talking about or not. Some entries are 
Radar Magazine
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-EVOL (1986).
Ah, EVOL. Here’s where Sonic Youth became Sonic Youth. Who knows how much Steve Shelley had to do with it, but he shows up and the band becomes amazing. The cover art is pretty darn scary and yet the music inside is amazingly beautiful. While by no means a commercial album, the album is chock full of melody.
[WATCHED: June 2009] The Power of Nightmares
Back oh, fifteen years ago, I subscribed to 
SOUNDTRACK: MOXY FRÜVOUS–The “b” album (1996).
After the somberness of Wood, Moxy Früvous no doubt had to get some nonsense out of their system. And this collection of “b” sides is full of nonsense. It is funny and silly and smart and sassy and I think it winds up being many people’s favorite discs, despite being only about 20 minutes long.
I Just Read About That... 