Two years after Donald Barthelme's death, his friend Robert Coover observed that his name had achieved a new currency as an adjective: the term "Barthelmesque," Coover wrote, refers not only to a style- "precise, urbane, ironic, rivetingly succinct, and...

Donald Barthelme has achieved his present eminence as one of the leading popular innovators in American fiction through the pages of the New Yorker magazine, where he began publishing in 1963. But, although he is best known for his stiff-upper-lip senten...

Ogres as romantic heroes and princess brides. Cinderella as a neurotic clean freak. Snow White as a bossy know-it-all. Puss in Boots hacking up hairballs. Pinocchio with a leaf still growing off his wooden lie-detector nose.These are not animation godfather Walt Disney's fairy tales.The "Shrek"...

The ritual sacrifice of a snow-white llama Friday symbolically marked President Evo Morales' nationalization of Bolivia's lone operating tin smelter.Swiss mining giant Glencore International AG owned the Vinto plant until last week and has threatened to seek compensation through international arbitration.Morales says his government will...

Picketing was hard work for hundreds of protesters who got cranky and needed naps Monday, so they put down their hand-scribbled signs and made their parents take them home.Striking Hollywood writers toted their kids to picket lines outside studios to teach them lessons about residuals...