From the Stacks: April 14, 2006

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Utne receives some 1,200 magazines, newsletters, journals, weeklies, and zines. Add in hundreds of books, CDs, and DVDs, and it's a flood of media that lines the walls of our library and piles high on our desks. All the ideas, people, and stories inspire lively daily chatter, but they can't all fit into our bimonthly magazine. So we share the gems here in our weekly editions of 'From the Stacks.' Check in every Friday for the freshest highlights of the independent and alternative media.

The quarterly magazine of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters sports a new name with the Spring 2006 issue: Wisconsin People & Ideas. Editor Joan Fischer says the old title -- Wisconsin Academy Review -- was widely considered 'dry and daunting' and didn't accurately impart the accessible content. The magazine has been academicspeak-free in the five years I've seen it regularly, running articles of interest to general readers, even ones outside Wisconsin. The new issue features a ten-page article about Ho-Chunk photographer Tom Jones, with eleven of his photo portraits, four depicting his grandfather, Jim Funmaker Sr. It also includes an ongoing 'In My Words' section of reader-written pieces, this time focusing on childbirth. -- Chris Dodge

Bulb, a British magazine named one of the best new titles of 2005 by Utne, lives up to its label in the newly arrived ninth issue (April/May). Seventy percent of the articles were penned by writers who aren't old enough to rent a car from many companies, but when they do reach the standard 25-year mark, you won't see them tooling down Oxford Street in gas-guzzling Land Rovers, as illustrated in the article 'Oh, SUVs... How I Hate You.' Contributing to the green theme is an interview with Bjork, the amateur 'spokesperson for nature'/musician, who defends the 'velvety black silt mountains' and 'delicate crystal streams' of her native Iceland. Three percent of the country 'will have disappeared under water' with the completion of the Karajnukar project, which plans to build 'an enormous hydroelectric dam... to service the US owned Alcoa aluminum plant.' -- Kristen Mueller

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