"I slept all day..."

Though I've heard of her for months now, I hadn't listened to Joanna Newsom's great album The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City, 2004) until tonight.

*

Alma Guillermopietro has published an excellent two-part series of articles on Venezuela in The New York Review of Books. I highly recommend both pieces:

-"Don't Cry For me, Venezuela," The New York Review of Books, October 6, 2005.
-"The Gambler," The New York Review of Books, October 20, 2005.

Guillermoprieto takes the time to look closely at the Venezuelan political crisis. Her articles include an interview with Teodoro Petkoff, as well as a discussion of recent books by Alberto Barrera Tyszka, Cristina Marcano and Colette Capriles.

"Strongmen or caudillos like Chávez, and dictators, too, have always depended on fervent popular support to consolidate their hold on power. How else could they push through the measures that deny their opponents access to a fair hearing or fair trial, or fair elections, and cripple the press? They profit as well from the weird joy many people take in watching a strongman exert his power." ("The Gambler")