One sunny afternoon this summer I returned from my home away from home (the beach) to find an email from my friend Lynell. “Diane,” she wrote, “I saw this and thought of you.” She sent me an article from the United Kingdom about a woman who gave up plastic for a month. (Apparently,...

I’m not sure why, but the spectre of death seems to be haunting me lately, with my father-in-law’s death a month ago, two relatively young parents of friends, and then a series of celebrity deaths (Bernie Mac, Tim Russert, Isaac Hayes, Jerry Wexler, Bill Coday, Jerry Reed). An hour or so...

Damien Jurado’s been at this songwriting, folk-singing business for over a decade now and has become both fairly prolific in his output and rather steady in his modus operandi. Like his good friend David Bazan (late of Pedro The Lion), Jurado has a coterie of determined, dedicated fans who adore...

I cannot recall when I first encountered The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I only know that it must have been early in my college career because I borrowed it from the university library and grew increasingly frustrated with the fact that I could not underline all scintillating, profoundly [inherently] familiar...

The people behind me, sitting in matching green lawn chairs, drinking overpriced beer, wanted all of us to sit down. But how could the crowd be kept from standing up? This is the best band in the world finally back in the Northwest to play a show. There was no stopping the sold out White River Amphitheatre...

Dear Readers, We’ve reached the point where we must ask you to help us. Burnside editors and regular contributors have been running through ideas, planning and preparing for months. It’s time for us to step out in faith. We know Burnside is special. We know we’re on to something....

It’s tough to be funny. It’s even tougher to be funny on paper, and to have that printed comedy survive round after round of editorial review and revision, and to have that printed comedy consistently serve a single thesis. And it’s especially tough to be funny when writing a book about...

Ah, Labor Day. Countless days basking in the sun at outdoor concerts are coming to a close. And while this summer is the last for one Brooklyn’s most unique venues, Regina Spektor got a chance to play McCarren Park Pool before it closed. With all the yellow school-buses beginning to make their...

You set down the juice and cookies and put your arm around Jason. “Look man,” you say. “I know that you are searching for something to fill that void in your life, but devil worshiping isn’t it.” “Yeah, but all of the heavy metal music I listen to says that devil worshiping is cool, and...