Baseball

“I wrote 63 songs this year. They’re all about Jeter.” Just kidding. The game we love, the players we hate, and more.

Culture and Criticism

From Norman Mailer to Wendy Pepper — everything on film, TV, books, music, and snacks (shut up, raisins), plus the Girls’ Bike Club.

Donors Choose and Contests

Helping public schools, winning prizes, sending a crazy lady in a tomato costume out in public.

Stories, True and Otherwise

Monologues, travelogues, fiction, and fart humor. And hens. Don’t forget the hens.

The Vine

The Tomato Nation advice column addresses your questions on etiquette, grammar, romance, and pet misbehavior. Ask The Readers about books or fashion today!

Boner Check
March 11, 2007 · No Comment

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when mere mention of the word “boner” could send Young Sarah into a paroxysm of hysterical giggling.In fact, nearly any mention of the male penis …

48 Hours With An Exploding Toilet
March 11, 2007 · No Comment

This week has progressed fairly uneventfully.I would have to say, aside from heat and humidity so thick that the miracle of evolution has begun in the primordial soup of my towel rack, that this week …

Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story
March 9, 2007 · No Comment

It does have some pacing problems, and a tendency to fall back on trite background imagery during voice-overs, but these are pretty minor complaints overall; the story itself is painstakingly assembled and chilling.   One …

The Vine: March 8, 2007
March 8, 2007 · One Comment

Hey Sars,
LF should try Jeff Shaara’s Rise to Rebellion. It’s a well researched historical fiction (though more history than fiction) work that reads like a novel, following the main players of the Revolutionary War on …

The Vine: March 7, 2007
March 7, 2007 · No Comment

I’m not sure which of his books it may be, but it sounds like something from photographer Robert Vavra. He photographs horses and other animals but has also done some beautiful photography of “unicorns.” Here …

The Women
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Fabulous!Again with the weird hats on Rosalind Russell — was that in her studio contract or something? — but it’s so silly and catty and it zips right along.Thumbs up.(7/3/06)

A Woman Under the Influence
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Worthwhile once you get to the end, but really unfun to watch — which is partly a compliment to Gena Rowlands’s performance (un! comfortable!), partly a comment on Cassavetes movies in general (awk! ward! and! …

Wings of Desire
March 5, 2007 · One Comment

What a marvelous movie.Over and over again, I would start to feel a stirring of impatience with the repetition and the collaging, only to get sucked back by an image or a twist.And what splendid …

What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Trog is laughing right now because I had this out from Netflix for six months, no joke.But I’ve finally watched it, and…wow.You know, I’d never seen a Joan Crawford movie; I’d seen Mommie Dearest about …

Wendigo
March 5, 2007 · No Comment

Oh my crap, where to begin with this…”movie.” It has so many serious problems, I can’t even decide which one is primarily at fault, but I think it’s a “flawed in its inception” issue, because …