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Q&A: Jessica Francis Kane Talks This Close and How Kindles Aren't Dumb

Buzz Off, Rihanna, Flo Rida, and Ke$ha! Here's Why I Hate Music!

If I sang this column onstage, you would make a shitty phone video of it

Three Reasons Why Old Records Are Bigger Than Ever

Deep catalog diving

Three Other Reasons Why Sales Of Old Records Are Outpacing Sales Of New Ones

This week the news came out that sales of catalog albums outpaced those of new records during the first six months of 2012. Current (less than 18 months old) albums sold 73.9 million copies between January 2 and June 1, down from 82.8 million in the first six months of 2011; catalog albums sold 76.6 ... More >>

Village Voice Media Releases First E-Book -- Seven Sins: A True Crime Anthology

Every week writers for the Village Voice and our parent company, Village Voice Media, produce elegant magazine-style feature writing--a gritty portion of which comes in the form of true-crime stories. Now VVM has collected some of its best recent true-crime yarns into an ebook: Seven Sins: A True Cr ... More >>

The Quest for a Dog-Shaped Cake Pan

Will a lamb do? It kinda looks like a poodle. Vic B. asks: Where can I get a dog-shaped pan to make a dog-shaped cake? Dear Vic B.: You don't specify what kind of dog, so I surmise it's for some other reason than the obvious--a doggie birthday party. Because if it were, wouldn't you want a specif ... More >>

Food Awards: Food & Wine's Best New Chefs, Food Magazine Covers Contest

Awards season is in full swing in the food world. Food & Wine just named its best new chefs, the American Society of Magazine Editors nominations are in, and the James Beard Awards will be announced in early May. Find out what has gone down so far, and how you can participate in the fun.

How to Use Your iPhone in Westchester

Here is a fellow casually talking on his old-world landline, which is attached to his new-world iPhone. Remember landlines, how good they felt next to your ear, how solid and sturdy and there? We were so young and innocent then! Don't you want to relive those days? This guy does.

Jay-Z And Kanye West Spared No Expense To Watch Watch The Throne

​That Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch The Throne didn't leak until about half an hour before its iTunes release is a noteworthy story in this age of Rapidshare and Megaupload being as stuffed with digital versions of new releases as iTunes and Amazon. And it turns out that the business decisions ... More >>

Dog Meat: What Does It Taste Like?

Grand Central Publishing​In case you Fork in the Road readers don't Google-stalk me, you might not know that I wrote a book called Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris, which recounts the year I spent learning to cook in restaurants around the world. ... More >>

Borders' Demise: What Does It Mean for New York's Independent Bookstores?

​Yesterday, the Columbus Circle Borders hosted its last event: a well-attended reading from Hair: The Story of the Show that Defined a Generation, followed by cast performances. A young boy sitting toward the back had his nose stuck in a graphic novel (paper, not digital) through almost the wh ... More >>

INFINITE SADNESS

Read your favorite David Foster Wallace piece

Eater Gets Two New Restaurant Critics

EaterLucy, enjoying pizza​Everyone's a critic these days, ourselves included! But this city's breed of restaurant reviewers keeps getting younger. First was Penelope Xin Yao Platt, daughter of New York magazine critic Adam Platt, who wrote up a four and a half star review of Ramen Takumi. A ... More >>

What is Mockingjay?

​Every now and then a buzzword or buzz-term comes along, and you have no idea what it means, or why people are saying it, you just know that everyone's going to be saying it, or is saying it, and you have no idea what it means until someone sighs, shakes their head, and explains something to y ... More >>

'Real' Housewife of New York Jill Zarin's Amazon.com Fake Review 'Scandal' Busted Open

​Cringing is a completely acceptable reaction when one hears the words 'Real Housewife of New York,' because there's nothing remotely 'Real' about the way the characters on Bravo's hit TV show live their lives in front of a camera. There is something, however, distinctly New York about how pot ... More >>

This Chart Detailing How Many iTunes Downloads, Spotify Streams, And So Forth It Takes For A Musician To Make Minimum Wage Is Pretty Dispiriting

​Well, this is unpleasant. Based largely on data collected here, somebody went and found a very pretty way to illuminate a very ugly reality: how many CDs, or downloads, or streams (via Rhapsody and Spotify -- this chart also includes Last.fm, but they've since axed that part of their service) ... More >>

Jamie Oliver Starts a Food Revolution; Michelle Obama Gets Pepsi & Coke Support

​Dozens of seniors in Brighton Beach have been complaining about the poor quality of their daily Meals on Wheels lunches. The problem, they say, started last year when the Jewish Association for Services to the Aged abandoned its own kitchen in favor of catering services. [NY Post] Pepsi and ... More >>

Why This Decade Sucked, Reason #9: Artists Joined The Farm League

​ We will, in the closing days of this wretched decade, list the Top Ten reasons why it sucked. Reason #10 is here. This is #9.   Name your favorite artists of the past decade. Tough one, huh? The Voice plays the best-of-decade game in the current issue, and we salute the fine crit ... More >>

Bad News For Carrie Prejean

​The new I'm-a-victim book by dethroned beauty queen Carrie Prejean might play well in the hinterlands (though it was ranked #595 on Amazon last time I looked), but In New York it's not exactly getting a royal treatment. In fact, I dropped by the Lincoln Center area Barnes & Noble yesterday t ... More >>

Nightmares Before Halloween 4: Allegedly Religious, Lesbian-Porn Dracula Sequel

​If jack-o-fetuses don't instruct your local children in the true Christian meaning of Halloween, you may wish to try on them Dracula: The Undead, a sequel to the famous vampire potboiler co-authored by Dacre Stoker, a descendent of original author Bram. It sounds like what you'd expect -- mor ... More >>

Clip Job: Arch Rivals -- Protesters and Cops

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archives July 1, 1965, Vol. X, No. 37 Dawn's Early Light Saw Anti-War Banner on Arch By John Wilcock For about one hour early one morning last week a 30-foot banner fluttered from the top of Washington Square arch. Bearing the message END THE ... More >>

Clip Job: What's Happening with Happenings

​Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archivesJanuary 21, 1965, Vol. X, No. 14What's Happening with HappeningsBy John WilcockThe worst thing that ever happened to "happenings" was that somebody started to call them happenings. Now we have the interesting situation of people who decide tha ... More >>

On Bookshelves, Both On and Offline, A Good Dose of Julia

mellemusic/flickr​ At least one good thing has come out of the ridiculous media frenzy surrounding the release of the film Julie & Julia: a renewed interest in Julia Child's brilliant written works. Eat Me Daily noticed that Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1 is currently t ... More >>

Clip Job: Wilcock Fed Up with Blue-Nosed Bureaucrats!

Clip Job: an excerpt every day from the Voice archivesApril 9, 1964, Vol. IX, No. 25The Village SquareBy John WilcockThe things that have been happening here lately have just about driven me up the wall with outrage and frustration. Who are these so-called "judges" and "licensing officials," et cete ... More >>

Cookbook Tester: Takashi's Noodles

Wakame Soba (the photos in the book are much prettier than mine)Takashi's Noodles by Takashi Yagihashi is a new cookbook from 10 Speed Press containing Yagihashi's exacting and precise recipes for Japanese noodles. The chapters are broken up by noodle type: ramen, soba, udon, somen, Asian noodles ( ... More >>

Pulp Fictions: The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero and Patrick Farley's "Don't Look Back"

Comics come out on Wednesday, and so does Richard Gehr's Pulp Fictions. The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero Edited by Angela Ndalianis Routledge The Contemporary Comic Book Superhero, edited by Angela Ndalianis, is the second genre-warping collection of essays either delivered at or inspired b ... More >>

Merry War on Christmas!

Bloggers Vs. an Author: No One Wins

Thoughts on book tours, literary self-promotion, and one published writer's blog spat

How Many Illegals in the U.S.? Who Knows?!

Trae: Rap as Paralyzing Depression

Rack Focus

Letters

How Much Is Music Worth?

Music subscription services may result in bargain binging

Gravy Ladles Suck

A dream bridal registry, courtesy of the jealous single friend

Bush's Tape Worm

Sick and Mortar

Real record stores open, close, move, struggle, and thrive

Jack White Plays Up His Authenticity Obsession for T Bone

Horoscope

Real-Life DVD Consumer Guide

Books

Sun Cell

How to Recharge in a Blackout

We Want to Get Sued Like Al Franken (but Fox Keeps Ignoring Us)!

The Broom of the System

Give 'Em Hell, Harry!

The Dreamlife of Shoppers

Studying Consumer Affairs

Digital Bandits

Decision Time at NYU

A University Debates Its Future

Urban Organics

The Incredible Shrinking Internet

When Cable Monopolies Rule the Web, Everyone Loses

Ryan's Hope

The Former Manager of the White-Hot Internet Fund Makes You a Millionaire and Heads to the Gym

Too Deep for Anger

To be Black in this Country is to Always Affirm Something