Welcome Back! After an agonizing hiatus of nearly two years, following the destruction of its offices by flames, The Baffler has finally published its fifteenth number.

The self-described "Magazine That Blunts The Cutting Edge" has, since 1988, unremittingly obliterated popular culture with uncommonly smart and pointed writing (as well as fiction, poetry, and imagery), without, gasp!, compromising its sense of humor.

Even its subscription appeal, in fact, elicits belly-laughs aplenty: "This is a new kind of war, friend, fought without think-tank money, celebrities, or glossy ads from transnational luxury conglomerates. It will require sacrifices. We will ask you to send a check or money order for $24 to the address below, which will ensure delivery of Bafflers 16 through 19. Coalition partners in Canada and Mexico will be asked to add an extra $4 for postage, while those elsewhere in the world will be asked to tack on $20."

The new ish takes on, among other topics, the Super Bowl, the weather, the cross-promotional media giants, superstar chefs, rock 'n' race, doll collector mania, and elite ritual societies.

If the magazine isn't quite as fiery as one might have expected, following the too-long layoff and the societal changes wrought by September 11, well, it just goes to show the heights to which expectations had been raised by previous editions. And it's still just about the best damned thing you'll read all year. Subscribe today!

P.O. Box 378293, Chicago, IL 60637; www.thebaffler.com.--Eddie Tews

Years ago, a friend recommended that I read Gore Vidal's American history series of novels. Instead of beginning with the first novel, I jumped right into the middle of the series and picked up Empire, which chronicles the misdeeds of two presidents, William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt, in the early 1900s, when the US was extending its navy around the world to build an empire. Gore covers the war against Spain in the Philippines, the US's bloody suppression of the Philippine independence movement, the annexation of Cuba, and political maneuvering over the control of China, all of it from the perspective of John Hay, who was McKinley's and then Roosevelt's Secretary of State. In the meantime, Gore charts the rise of yellow journalism and its main purveyor, William Randolph Hearst, who showed the US media how to sell papers by leading with an axe murder and burying the real news in the back pages. Empire is satirical, enjoyable, and provides more insight about the year 2003 and our new imperialist president, George W. Bush, than any book that's out today (including Bob Woodward's). Highly recommended.--Maria Tomchick

When my sister told me the name of her new cat--Neptune Catfish Robicheaux--I replied "huh?" She explained that she had named him after her favorite mystery novel character, Dave Robicheaux, resident of New Iberia, Louisiana, ex-cop, Vietnam vet, recovering alcoholic, and foster father to an orphaned El Salvadoran refugee girl. I've just finished reading Black Cherry Blues, the first novel in James Lee Burke's hard-boiled Robicheaux series and was struck by one thing: Robicheaux works his 12-step program as a matter of survival, but his faith is not so much in God than in the ability of like-minded and good-hearted people to help each other out in times of need--even if they're quite a bit less saintly than they should be, most of the time.--M.T.

Another fun mystery novel, particularly for feminists, is Laurie King's first novel in her Mary Russell series, The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Mary Russell is a teenaged, rowdy, turn-of-the-century (1900) maverick woman, determined to go to college and make something of her mind. And then, one day while walking on the moor and reading a book, she trips over Sherlock Holmes, who's studying honey bees. Holmes, it turns out, is still alive (albeit retired), and his demise was fictional. Here author Laurie King makes the most of the Sherlock Holmes fans who endlessly debate whether the man really existed or if he was just the product of Arthur Conan Doyle's imagination. King surmises that he actually existed, and that Holmes lived for years in "retirement," while working as a spy for the British government. Naturally, in King's novel, opinionated, intelligent Mary Russell becomes a close friend of the arrogant, logical Holmes, then becomes his student. It's fun, escapist, and--what do you know!--Mary manages to rescue his ass a few times. What more can you ask for in a feminist novel?--M.T.

The Lord of the Rings is said to have a particular relevance for our time. Another epic presented as a three part film that may be even more resonant is Peter Brook's Mahabarata, released in 1989.

Like The Lord of the Rings, the Hindu epic Mahabarata is a magic-infused story of war, heroic events, and evil. But where Tolkein's story makes the demarcation between good and evil relatively clear, in the Mahabarata even the semi-divine heroes of the film never seem to quite know themselves which side of justice they are acting for.

The story revolves around two groups of cousins, with competing claims to the rulership of a great kingdom in ancient India. An intergenerational series of curses and misfortune have left the kingdom in the hands of a blind king. The cousins are the upcoming generation--the king's 100 sons, the Kauravas. They face off against the Pandavas, the five sons of the blind king's deceased older brother, who are the disenfranchised rightful heirs to the kingdom.

The five Pandava brothers were really fathered by five different powerful gods, and it is their destiny to reclaim the kingdom and preserve an outpost of truth for the coming dark age. The Pandavas are advised and befriended by the divine Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu, the preserver of the universe who has come into to world at this pivotal time in history to "destroy the destroyers." And in classic trickster fashion, Krishna proceeds to use every underhanded trick necessary to assure that there will be a great and horrible war, wherein almost everybody dies and almost everyone else is dishonored, in the name of some necessary result that only he can clearly see. Sound familiar?

The Kauravas and their allies, the designated losers of the conflict, are not noticeably more evil than their rivals, and many of the combatants are conflicted in their loyalties and enmities. The good guys have faults and the bad guys have righteous tendencies. While a story of warriors, their wives and mothers play fiercely important roles in the action--for both good and ill.

The Mahabarata is the longest epic poem in the world, and like its sibling epic, the Ramayana, it, and stories from it, are still recited, performed, and even broadcast as television series throughout South Asia.

Peter Brooks' film version, produced in 1989, was adapted from a stage production. The set design and "special effects" are very much in the BBC style. The production is every bit as breathtaking, in its completely different way, as the digital wizardry of The Lord of the Rings. The actors play their roles as if they are performing a powerful ritual that just happens to be a film, a bit of playful fun that just happens to be epic history.

A legendary director from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Brooks collaborated with Jean-Claude Carriere to adapt the vast Mahabarata into a version that Westerners, with our different cultural backgrounds, could relate to. Successful as it is on its own terms, people who grew up on more authentic versions have been known to be less enthused. The film is available on three videotapes at the Seattle Public Library, if not at your local video store.--Troy Skeels