In with the new, on with the show Top talents across the musical spectrum will heat up concert halls across the country this weekend. For some, a New Year’s gig will be a homecoming, a chance to reconnect with fans who were present at the creation. Some will parlay a good time with a good cause....

L.A.: Joe Bodolai dead at 63 The comedy writer who wrote for NBC’s Saturday Night Live in its infancy, and who was a producer of the successful Canadian comedy series The Kids in the Hall, was found dead on Monday in a hotel room, an apparent suicide. CBC News reports Globe and Mail: “Helped by...

Late night with ... the candidates Used to be presidential hopefuls made the obligatory pilgrimage to the Sunday-morning politics talk shows to get their points across. Used to be. Now, candidates are heading for the younger audiences (and generally friendlier confines) of the late-night talk...

‘The Muslims Are Coming’ In post-9/11 America, “Muslim” is too often perceived as a dirty word, with Islam’s adherents often subject to slurs, discrimination, or worse in the wake of that terrorist attack and the two wars that followed. But four Muslim comedians touring the Deep South are working...

New Orleans: Hall of fame, hall of time 726 St. Peter Street: It’s survived the turbulence of two centuries, the musical tastes of a fickle and indifferent public, and even Hurricane Katrina. And Preservation Hall, now celebrating its golden anniversary year, persists in keeping traditional jazz...

Edinburgh: Scotland brandishes its identity in a renovated national gallery Clothes that go beyond the leopard print...

Etta James terminally ill Reuters: The live-in physician for the three-time Grammy-winning R&B singer said in a California newspaper interview this week that James, 73, is terminally ill with leukemia, dementia and kidney disease, among other illnesses. Her most recent album, The Dreamer, was...

Christopher Hitchens dies The rapier literary and conversational wit, masterful political critic, relentless all-night party animal and perhaps the greatest essayist of our time, died on Thursday in Houston, Texas, of complications of esophageal cancer. He was 62. In a career of sterling essays,...

Pop-ups: Get ‘em before they’re gone From a Manhattanized version of a downhome general store to a computer kiosk at a major airport, from express versions of high-volume retailers like Toys R Us and Target to quirky craftsman boutiques, holiday-only “pop-up” stores are becoming a big part of...

NYC: Bearden’s centennial The bold, visionary artist Romare Bearden was born 100 years ago, and the U.S. art world is marking the occasion. But institutions in the city, from the Schomburg to the Met, are celebrating the collagist’s centenary with vibrant retrospectives. “In Bearden’s embracing...

Occupy the comics! Writer Alan Moore and artist David Lloyd, creators of the anti-totalitarian comic classic V for Vendetta, are backing the global Occupy movement, the mass phenomenon that’s drawn spiritual and iconographic inspiration from the comic they first published in 1982. For Moore, the...

Seattle: Christmas with attitude Three wise men, babe in a manger, blah blah blah. The holiday season always unleashes the usual tales of the Nativity. The creators of Wisemen would beg to differ. The musical, staged at ACT Theatre, puts a wild contemporary comic gloss on the story we know. “The...