All Authors >

MIKE MILIARD

Latest Articles

Hoop nightmare

Len Bias’s death was more than just a basketball tragedy.
It wasn’t quite the world-shattering, where-were-you-when moment as the space shuttle Challenger exploding into cottony plumes earlier that year. But I still remember my naive and dazed disbelief upon hearing that basketball star Len Bias had died of a cocaine overdose on June 19, 1986

By MIKE MILIARD | October 28, 2009

Monkey Business

Boston's an academic city, even for capuchins who attend Brighton's Monkey College, where they're trained to be lifesavers for the disabled
Craig Cook remembers when friends tried to draw him out of a deep depression — by offering to get him a monkey.

By MIKE MILIARD | October 21, 2009

No alternative

Authentic Journalism Dept.
“I got very tired of being called an ‘alternative journalist’ for so many years,” says former Phoenix reporter Al Giordano. “Alternative to what?"

By MIKE MILIARD | October 14, 2009

Graphic Traffic

A sweet crop of graphic narratives
Comics. Graphic novels. Sequential-art books. Call them what you will, but there are more of them than ever.

By MIKE MILIARD | October 16, 2009

Lie of the land

Lying liars, and the end of accountability
In his new film, The Invention of Lying , Ricky Gervais plays Mark Bellison, a pudgy everyman who lives in Anytown in a utopian world where lies don't exist — until he tells one.

By MIKE MILIARD | October 07, 2009

Comic writers go nuclear — they think Amazon's the bomb

Gone Fission Dept.
It was reported last week that "Iran has agreed 'in principle' to an international proposal that could significantly reduce its stocks of uranium."

By MIKE MILIARD | October 07, 2009

Review: The Invention of Lying

Gervais not inventive enough
In the world of this debut effort from Ricky Gervais, there are no movies. There’s only Lecture Films, a studio that produces pictures in which actors read from accounts of historical events.

By MIKE MILIARD | October 09, 2009

It's hip to be icosahedral

In a new book, Ethan Gilsdorf tracks his global quest to visit the holiest nerd-world sites
Be they beer geeks, comic-book geeks, or music geeks, nowadays people flout their geekdom proudly, even wearing it like a badge.

By MIKE MILIARD | October 05, 2009

Hans Rickheit versus the novel

Exploding Cow Dept.
In high-school English class, we're taught that literature features three basic types of conflict: man versus man, man versus environment, and man versus himself.

By MIKE MILIARD | September 30, 2009

Fallon Upward

Local Laughs
Boston is thoroughly dominating NBC's fall line-up.

By MIKE MILIARD | September 16, 2009

Interview: Uli Edel

The Baader Meinhof Complex director talks about terror and glamour
Edel talks about terror and glamour

By MIKE MILIARD | September 11, 2009

Storied treasures

Arts and Crap Dept.
How much would you pay for a nutcracker James Dean used — precisely how, we can't guess — to pleasure himself? Or a cow-shaped creamer that once belonged to Norman Rockwell during a particularly dark period of his life?

By MIKE MILIARD | September 10, 2009

High dives

It's harder than ever to find a bar with soul in town these days. But it's not impossible.
Dive bars. Where the drinks are cold and stiff. Where the air wafts with the unmistakable but not-altogether-unpleasant tang of suds long since spilled. Where the neon shines bright and true and the jukebox plays good and loud.

By MIKE MILIARD | August 31, 2009

Interview: John Oliver

The British comic and Daily Show correspondent on Glenn Beck, gun nuts, and the National Health
John Oliver is English. There's no getting around it, really.

By MIKE MILIARD | August 27, 2009

Big Fat Whale gets even fatter

Laugh Factory
Brian McFadden's comic strip Big Fat Whale — which can be seen semi-regularly in these very pages — had an inauspicious beginning.

By MIKE MILIARD | August 26, 2009

Review: It Might Get Loud

Davis Guggenheim films his essay on the electric guitar
Some guitar teachers will tell you there’s a right way and a wrong way to play the guitar. But Davis Guggenheim’s rousing new documentary, It Might Get Loud, reminds us that that’s not true at all.

By MIKE MILIARD | August 27, 2009

A mighty wind

New England plays catch-up in the green-energy race
This past Earth Day, President Barack Obama, speaking at an Iowa wind-turbine factory, delivered a gusty peroration. "The nation that leads the world in creating new energy sources will be the nation that leads the 21st-century global economy," he said. "America can be that nation. America must be that nation."

By MIKE MILIARD | August 24, 2009

Holding a finger to the wind

An energy expert forecasts a blustery day ahead for the region
Across New England, there's currently less than 150 megawatts worth of wind turbines installed and operational. That's small change compared with what's happening in places such as Texas and California. But it's a whole lot more than existed just a few years ago.

By MIKE MILIARD | August 19, 2009

Photos: Stetson Wind in Maine

Images of Stetson Wind
Photos of Stetson Wind in Washington County, Maine

By MIKE MILIARD | August 19, 2009

Photos + Review: Pretenders, Cat Power at Pavilion

The Pretenders + Cat Power + Juliette Lewis | August 12, 2009 at Bank of America Pavilion
The Pretenders + Cat Power + Juliette Lewis | August 12, 2009 at Bank of America Pavilion

By MIKE MILIARD | August 14, 2009