In a Washington Post op-ed Tuesday, Ayelet Waldman explains why it’s not contradictory for women to support Barrack Obama instead of Hillary Clinton.

“We are lucky this year to have two such remarkable candidates running for president, two candidates who inspire passion — as both Hirshman and my words make clear,” Waldman writes. “What is also clear, however, is that nothing can be gained by making broad generalizations and unwarranted accusations.”

To read the entire column, click here.

The newest issue of The New Yorker contains an essay by Michael Chabon examining superhero costumes.

“Now the time has come to propose, or confront, a fundamental truth: like the being who wears it, the superhero costume is, by definition, an impossible object,” he writes. “It cannot exist.”

To read the entire essay, click here.

Could it be? Is this a dream? Will the Joel and Ethan Coen adapt The Yiddish Policemen’s Union?

That’s the claim of British newspaper The Guardian. In a profile of Scott Rudin, the paper reports that Rudin “has already started working on the next Coen brothers film, an adaptation of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.”

And, as it happens, it’s true, according to Chabon.

“[Rudin] swore me to silence, but if he’s letting the cat out of the bag, then I guess I can finally tell you,” Chabon said via e-mail.

According to Chabon, the Coen brothers have agreed to at least write the adaptation, once the writer’s strike ends. (They made the deal pre-strike.)

“I am, of course, over the moon about this,” Chabon said. “They are among my favorite living moviemakers. Three or four of their films are on my all-time favorite list. They are geniuses. What’s more, I think they are perfectly suited to this material in every way, from its genre(s) to its tone to its content. I can’t wait to see what they eventually do with it.”

The Coen brothers, of course, are the directors behind this year’s Oscar nominee No Country for Old Men. And before that, they directed the crime drama Fargo.

Rudin bought the film rights to Yiddish about five years ago based on a one-and-a-half page proposal. Rudin is no stranger to Chabon novels. He produced Wonder Boys, and also owns the rights to The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

“Now we just need to get this strike settled,” Chabon said.

With Super Tuesday only one day away, Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman are hitting the editorial pages to push their candidate, Barack Obama.

In The Washington Post on Monday, Chabon says up until now, he’s patiently listened as people told him reasons to not vote for Obama.

“But now, with everything seeming to come down, at last, to the first Tuesday in February, and in the wake of an all-out, months-long push by the cynicism industry to cook up an entire line of bad reasons ready to heat and serve, I admit that I’m getting tired of listening to rationales from people who know that Obama is a remarkable, even an extraordinary politician, the kind who comes along, in this era of snakes and empty smiles, no more than once a generation,” Chabon writes.

And on Sunday, Chabon and Waldman tried to win over undecideds in their home state through an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle.

To date, Chabon and Waldman have raised $25,930 for Obama. It’s just shy of their final goal of $30,000.

It didn’t win any awards, and the early reviews are mixed to bad.

That’s the final word on Mysteries of Pittsburgh following last week’s Sundance Film Festival. Bloggers had long attacked the movie for not following the book close enough.

The Hollywood Reporter calls Mysteries a “reverential and smart distillation” of Chabon’s novel. But the Reporter takes some hits at the film too, saying the performances of Jon Foster and Peter Sarsgaard are what help invigorate the film and “keenly flesh-out its emotional dimensions.”

FirstShowing.Net‘s reviewer also liked the film. “What I discovered was not particularly funny, but rather a very endearing drama with a wonderful score and great characters. It’s not anything close to a masterpiece, but Mysteries of Pittsburgh is still a great film.”

Then there’s the mixed reviews, like Buzz Sugar’s. “It’s not a bad movie, by any means. The music is fantastic, for example. Many of the directorial choices (the way shots are set up, the use of voiceover narration, etc.) are superb. Several of the performances are arresting. But the dialog is stilted and the action feels extremely rushed.”

And then there’s the haters. A review posted on Ain’t It Cool News say while the film was “competently directed, the story was unengaging. Keep the faith in Thurber and most of the actors, but check this flick out only if you’re hardcore for any of ’em.”

And The Advocate slams the film as well. “Thurber’s changes have made The Mysteries of Pittsburgh flatter, more generic, and more like umpteen Sundance films that have come before it.”

A parting shot, from Chud: “Here’s the big mystery of Pittsburgh: How did this movie manage to be so completely terrible?”