Princess for President

by Emily Braden Feb. 1, 2006 Last week I spoke to fifth-grade girls about my career as a writer. Seems like just another day at the elementary school, except I�m a woman speaking to a gender-separated classroom where �no boys allowed� provides for more open dialogue. I was frightened.

[Art] History as Art

by Natalie A. Collier Photo by Natalie A. Collier January 31, 2007 The exterior of the spacious, charming house that sits directly across the street from a Jackson middle school is black. Inside James Luckett Powell�s house, which was built in 1923, is a riot of color from the artifacts James has collected over the years. In the living room, there are dolls from...

[Theater] Yearning for Home

by Ronni Mott January 31, 2007 When I was a child, we spent summers in the Catskill Mountains, where my mother ran a beauty shop. My father would drive up from Manhattan to join us on weekends. The small town of Liberty, N.Y., and the Appalachian foothills were my playground. I spent many happy days picking wild strawberries and blueberries, or catching minnows...

[Food & Drink] A Mississippi Girl In Wine Country

by Farley Walker Janaury 31, 2007 One year ago, I drove alone in an overstuffed U-Haul to just south of San Francisco, without knowing anyone or where I would live. But, like I tell my mom when she tearfully asks why I have to live across the country, �I need to be in the heart of it, where the wine is being made.�

[Food & Drink] The Search For The Elusive Wonton

by Sarah Christine Bolton Photo Jaro Vacek January 31, 2007 I was a child when first introduced to wonton soup. During regular visits to the local Chinese buffet, I feasted only on the life-giving wonton soup and the occasional egg roll. I didn�t know at the time that the strange-looking, meat-filled wontons floating in a delicate chicken broth were meant to represent...

Excuses, Excuses

by Ronni Mott January 24, 2007 When it comes to exercise, or avoiding it, some of us have creative, if lame, excuses�my cat will miss me, for example. For the most part, though, our excuses aren�t unique.

[Body & Soul] Thoughts Of Bikinis

by Lea Thomas Photo by Montroe Heado January 24, 2007 There are no available spaces in the parking lot. There are cars parked on the grass and down the street. And once inside, you have to wait in line. This is not the scene of a hot Friday night party. It�s the first few weeks of the New Year at the gym.

[Theater] Fear And Pity

by Nientara Anderson Photos by Nientara Anderson January 24, 2007 What would happen if you took the camera in a typical crime movie and refocused it on the faceless mobster in the back? The brutish thug who�s in and out of the movie in a flash, his blunt features and grunted lines leaving little more than general distaste in the audience�s memory�what if he were...

[Food & Drink] Good Ole Yankee Southern Cooking

by Crawford Grabowski Photo by Drew Ford January 24, 2007 Recently, while eating the tastiest grits on the planet, I began thinking about the worst grits I have ever encountered. These were created by Jan, my step-mother. I believe the basic problem was that she used equal parts grits and water, which didn�t make for the breakfast we were expecting, but rather, cement. I...

[alt.geek] The iPhone arrives...In June

by Todd Stauffer January 10, 2007 You�ve got to feel as sorry as you possibly can for the richest man in the world. After all, here�s Bill Gates on Monday, giving the keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the largest technology shows on the planet, and he�s one of the most important people in the history of modern computing. He�s amassed a fortune by...