Mirror Mirror: Society for the Advancement of Inflammatory Consciousness
From the first choral note and accompanying bell-ring, Mirror Mirror's Society for the Advancement of Inflammatory Consciousness (Cochon Records) sounds like a slightly creepy carnival ride. This, however, does not mean the album sounds unfriendly. It just means the lights randomly go dark, and the man operating the ride smiles in a slightly unsettling way before he hits the switch, and the car drags you, the hapless fairgoer, off into the dark and unpredictable bowels of the fun house.
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The Goth teenager in me comes out during songs like "Lock Up Your Sons," with its vaguely unsettling lyrics—"We are your family now/Lock up your sons"—surrounded by slow-moving horror flick keyboards.
Freaks, Geeks, and Other Unlikely Heroes: A Talk With Adrian Tomine
If I had known Adrian Tomine when I was in high school, I would have definitely become obsessed. I would have written circuitous and twee letters to his fan club, and I probably would have sent him my zine, just to see if my quirky world appealed to him as much as his did to me.

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0 to Fearless in 60 Minutes
People glance back at me with shock and amazement when I tell them I play professional women's full-contact football. When I tell them that deciding to play was the best decision I ever made, you should see how their expressions dim. Football? "Three grueling nights a week, no actual salary, buy your own equipment and pay your own insurance" football? "No glitz, no glamour, lucky to get a quarter page in the city paper or a two minute clip on the local evening news" football? Yup—that's the one.

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When I wrapped my arms around my teammate and drove her down to that blue pad, I knew I had arrived. I was thrilled to death and hadn't yet donned one piece of equipment. "So, when I'm wearing the pads, I can run full speed towards you, hit you as hard as possible, and then we can both get up unscathed and do it again? Does life get any better?" Why had I thought women couldn't do this? Why did I think we couldn't have our patent leather pumps and pigskin, too?