Eleanor's take on what's fun in web-side culture news right now. Um, it's a broad definition of culture, okay?
- Esquire remembers the delicious Paul Newman in a story first published in 2000, when he was 75 and contemplating a graceful exit.
- Who knew he was such a sad sack? Brilliant profile of '30 Rock' star Alec Baldwin in the New Yorker.
- Ahoy, geeks! Wired mag ponders cruises for chess players, people who wanna be pirates, and those eager to hang out with old-school 'Battlestar Galactica' stars. Just try to pretend you don't want to be there...
- A touching piece from Salon about the last days of David Foster Wallace, author of Consider the Lobster, beloved professor, and chronically melancholy man.
- Marilyn Monroe's detritus is picked over again in an intrusive but fascinating online Vanity Fair feature. Riffle through her receipts, private correspondence, recipes, personal keepsakes and will.
- Start making plans for AK09, March 5-22. The schedule isn't announced until early November, but dance group Black Grace, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, and Japanese theatrical group Ishinha, among others, are confirmed.