Maddie Oatman

Research Editor

Maddie worked as a travel guide in Argentina and a teacher at several educational nonprofits in San Francisco before joining Mother Jones. She’s also written for Outside, the Bay Citizen, and the Rumpus. A proud Boulder native, she makes time for mountain climbing, stargazing, and telemark skiing.

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Geographer's Danceable Dreamscape

—By Maddie Oatman

| Mon Mar. 21, 2011 3:30 AM PDT

"What a cartographer does mapping out a place is what a musician does mapping out an emotion," says Mike Deni, singer of San Francisco-based indie band Geographer. "When someone finds a new territory, they distill it into something transferable, something that people can understand, like a map. But that inevitably changes it, and there are good and bad things to that. That's what the name Geographer is about; that process."

The band—comprised of Deni, who also plays synths and guitar, cellist Nathan Blaz, and drummer Brian Ostreicher—has charted a steady course in the Bay Area music scene by bridging the gap between the often-impersonal space of electronica and the lush realm of emotionally charged melodies. By layering Deni's mesmerizing falsetto over springy synths, pulsing drums, and the pull of an electric cello, Geographer produces hypnotic dance numbers that prove quite addictive. Since being named one of three "Undiscovered Bands You Need to Hear Now!" by Spin in 2008, Geographer has been gaining traction; its last show—during the Noise Pop Music Festival—sold out quickly.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

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LISTEN: Sarah Vowell's Hawaiian Odyssey (Audio)

The pop historian and This American Life regular uncovers the shocking truth about...the Aloha State.

—By Maddie Oatman

| March/April 2011 Issue

Leave it to Sarah Vowell to visit Hawaii and spend her trip indoors, wearing a cardigan and tracking down the historical narratives of early English settlers. A wry history nerd who fixated upon America's Protestant predecessors in The Wordy Shipmates, Vowell's new book, Unfamiliar Fishes, sails off the mainland to trace the annexation and conversion of our 50th state.

Unfamiliar Fishes sweeps us through juicy accounts of saltine-cracker-dry Puritans hellbent on "civilizing" Hawaiian natives—and horny New England seamen with other plans for the locals. Also featured: prostitutes, fanatics, and an incestuous queen. Even Vowell's adorable nephew Owen makes the cut, popping up from time to time in the narrative to do impressions of King Kamehameha and begrudgingly trail after his aunt on yet another hike to an island landmark. Vowell spoke with Mother Jones recently about Hawaiian secessionists, Polynesian greetings, and King Kamehameha III's big mistake.

Mother Jones: Did you decide to write Unfamiliar Fishes so you could get a tan in Hawaii?

Sarah Vowell: Well, a lot of my time in Hawaii was spent wearing a cardigan sweater and sitting in archives that are climate-controlled, researching old missionary letters and correspondence between the men who got the United States to annex Hawaii. There are probably better plans for knocking around than writing a book about Hawaii in the 19th century.

MJ: So you didn't see the sun all that much.

SV: I mean, I did a lot of traveling around. I got to do things like try and find a queen's birth cave and go to the valley on Maui where a particularly brutal battle occurred that is all the more beautiful a place in contrast. There was a lot of mixing it up in the out of doors—just not that much sitting around drinking umbrella drinks.

[Read the full article]

826 Valencia's Spelling Bee for Cheaters

—By Maddie Oatman and Emily Loftis

| Fri Feb. 18, 2011 1:30 PM PST

Judge Jay Reiss helps Mythbusters' co-host Adam Savage pronounce a word

The atmosphere at San Francisco's Herbst Theater on Thursday night felt more like a high school auditorium than its usual elegant performance space. Hundreds had come to observe the Spelling Bee for Cheaters, a fundraiser for literary nonprofit and tutoring center 826 Valencia, and the air bubbled with the sounds of peppy teams cheering on their spellers. A team of librarians near stage right quietly practiced snarky rhyming chants, and teens dressed in bee costumes flitted around the orchestra seats. As the lights dimmed, the "Black Swan" team near the front row turned on their twinkling electric crowns, stood up, and in unison did a ballerina spin in support of their tutu-clad teammate on stage.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]

A Sticky Situation for TransCanada's Keystone XL Pipeline

—By Maddie Oatman

| Thu Feb. 17, 2011 4:07 AM PST

Environmental activists have long criticized the production of tar-sands oil; this especially dirty form of fuel demands tons of energy to obtain and results in high greenhouse gas emissions, not to mention the toxic wastelands its extraction leaves behind. But a new report, "Tar Sands Pipeline Safety Risks" (PDF), looks more closely at the environmental costs associated with the oil's transportation—which might soon run straight down the middle of the continent. A proposed TransCanada pipeline, the Keystone XL, would carry billions of gallons of crude tar sands oil from Canada into the US. This raw oil—more corrosive, volatile, and acidic than the upgraded synthetic tar-sands oil we've become used to—would flow from Alberta to Houston, through some valuable wetlands and aquifers in the Midwest.

[Read more in the Blue Marble blog]

"Bhutto" Film Lauds Leader, Hints at Shadows

—By Maddie Oatman

| Thu Feb. 17, 2011 4:00 AM PST

To hear an interview with Fatima Bhutto, Benazir Bhutto's niece and author of a new memoir, see "Fatima Bhutto on Pakistan, Egypt, and Middle East Unrest."

When a suicide bomber killed Benazir Bhutto in December of 2007 in her native Pakistan, not everyone was surprised. Over three decades, Pakistanis had watched three of Benazir's immediate family members murdered. Benazir had just returned from exile in Dubai in hopes of being reelected for a third term as Prime Minister, stepping back into the fast-moving and often bloody currents of Pakistani politics. It wasn't just their charm that earned the Bhuttos the comparison with the Kennedys: Upon reentering Pakistan, it was as if Benazir had unlocked the doors to her family's curse.

When the filmmakers set out to make the documentary Bhutto about Benazir, they too got a taste of the Bhutto curse. "Three days after checking out of the Marriot Islamabad," writes American director Duane Baughman, "the entire hotel was blown to the ground by a suicide bomber and a truck full of explosives, killing over 40 people." Despite this haunting experience, Baughman and his crew went on to interview dozens of allies, family members, historians, and academics and used unaired footage of the Bhuttos and audio recordings of Benazir create a dense, chronological look at Bhutto's tumultuous life and the predicaments in which her country has found itself over and over again. And though the film sympathizes heavily with Benazir, it also hints at the shadows inherent in her controversial persona.

[Read more in the Mixed Media blog]