Links Oct. 1, 2006

A Guide to the Hold Steady States of America
THE HOLD STEADY was supposed to be a local band, and in a sense that’s what it is. The members mainly live in New York, and Sunday night they’re coming to Manhattan, to Irving Plaza, to celebrate their great new album, “Boys and Girls in America.”

Booked-Up Publishers Could Be in a Bind
NEW YORK — This fall, the largest number of new titles by brand-name authors in recent memory is hitting bookstores, and the publishing world is asking itself an unusual question: Can there be too many good books?

Instead of Bad Movies, Cinema Shows None
The owner gives workers a paid vacation and closes for two weeks to protest 'lousy material.'

Tom Morello Arrested At Protest, Spends Night in Lockup
Guitarist released Friday after protesting for immigrant workers' rights at Los Angeles march.

The Writing Life
Watching a writer write is about as interesting as watching paint dry -- but something hairy is going on...

The Inside Agitator
It seemed somewhat bizarre, then, when Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, chose to make the long odyssey to Alaska at the end of May, near what was the beginning of one of the most intense and closely contested national election campaigns in memory, when every other Democrat in Washington was talking about potentially decisive states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.