A L S O_.T O D A Y Blue Glow Norm Macdonald: Ready for prime time?; "It's like ..." premieres Search and ye shall find -- personal health, family wealth and bibliophilic happiness at barnesandnoble.com Search by:  Keyword Title Author   RECENTLY IN ENTERTAINMENT It's not the meat, it's the motion By David Bowman Thanks to eight Rykodisc re-releases, this spring is Meat Puppets season (03/23/99) Sharps & Flats Reviews of new albums by TLC, Ben Lee, Dusty Springfield, Hugues Cuénod (03/23/99) And the frumps are ... By Camille Paglia The 71st Academy Awards are a parade of pomaded pretty boys and washed-out drag queens from lame movies. Where is the glamour? (03/22/99) Not abhorrent! By Cintra Wilson Just when you're ready to give up on awards shows altogether, the Oscars turn out to be halfway entertaining (03/22/99) And the Oscar goes to... A complete list of 71st Academy Award Winners (03/22/99) BROWSE THE SARAH VOWELL ARCHIVES

[ A M E R I C A N _.S Q U I R M__B Y__S A R A H_.V O W E L L ] Crime and punishment Thanks to "creative sentencing," bad art finally has some redeeming social value. BY SARAH VOWELL | According to Jeffrey Abramson's March 11 New York Times op-ed piece about the trend toward "smart sentencing," a judge in North Carolina "sentenced a man who rammed his truck into a car driven by an interracial couple to watch the movie 'Mississippi Burning.'" It just so happens that I have seen "Mississippi Burning," a film that, while morally just, is cinematically flat. Telling the story of the investigation of the murder of civil rights workers (including two Jews who are weirdly costumed as ringers for the cartoon beatnik from "Dobie Gillis"), it kind of plods. But maybe that was the judge's point. It wouldn't be a punishment if he made the racist watch a good movie, would it? With this line of reasoning in mind, as an act of civic good will, I offer my expertise as an arts and entertainment critic to the burgeoning industry of wacky sentencing. Now that 1.8 million Americans are in jail, there's not much room for new offenders. Better to unload the bad guys into multiplexes, art museums, record stores and other cultural institutions. A list of crimes and their sentences appears below. Just remember: Bad art = good punishment. Drunk drivers: People convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol will be forced to watch every episode of the Fox television series "Party of Five." The five young Salingers were orphaned, you'll recall, when a drunk driver killed both of their parents. The series -- think the Book of Job unfolding in San Francisco's Pacific Heights -- chronicles their bottomless pit of bad luck. The rehabilitative effect this should have on the alcoholic offender would be sobering indeed, leading to the conclusion that if the drunk driver on the show (who, it's worth remembering, shows up at Bailey Salinger's AA meetings after Bailey himself becomes a drunk) had simply taken a cab home that fateful night, eldest daughter Julia wouldn't be a divorcee by freshman year; oldest son Charlie might not have knocked up a stripper; and, most important, youngest daughter Claudia would now have a mother around to tell her to wipe off all that makeup, giving her kindly, maternal advice along the lines of "Honey, you look like a whore." Jaywalkers: Probably the pettiest criminals with the most hubris, jaywalkers believe those bossy "WALK/DON'T WALK" lights are meant for other people. Because this offense has been elevated to an art form on the island of Manhattan, daily bus tours will depart from the Port Authority to Frank Lloyd Wright's building "Falling Water" in Pennsylvania. Since recent structural tests reveal that due to Wright's egocentric flouting of architectural support (the rules of gravity don't apply to me!), the entire landmark is about to fall down. Jaywalkers will be asked to observe the slippage through holes in the floor, walk to the farthest, shakiest cantilevered edge and repeat the mantra "My egocentric actions contribute to the crumbling of civilization" 500 times. N E X T_P A G E _| The dreaded Keanu Reeves sentence - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ILLUSTRATION BY DAVE EGGERS