Everyone's talking about ...

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  Sign language strangles cinema

  Nicholas Lezard: Providing for the deaf is admirable, but subtitles are a far less intrusive way of communicating film
• 

  ETAYLOR

  'Sign language need exercising. Cut it some slack.'
• 

  DrEricVornoff

  'Why can't we toggle the man on and with the red button?'

• Service on classical

  LA bids a fond farewell to Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Tom Service: There aren't many towns that would bother to commemorate the departure of a music director, but Los Angeles is doing it in style
• Music blog

  The deafening silence in political music

  Matthew Herbert: With so many political issues to address in the modern world, it's astonishing that musicians refuse to engage with them
• Books blog

  Running a literary prize in the real world

  Richard Lea: The winner of the Man Asian award is not entirely unexpected. But then how could it be?
• Theatre blog

  Is the Bulger case a suitable subject for theatre?

  Andrew Haydon: Bulger is the latest in a long line of plays to risk accusations of exploitation

• Editors' picks
• Video
• Audio
• In pictures

Steve Toltz: Guardian first book award (8min 10sec)

Skins and Punks by Gavin Watson

Music Weekly: Fleet Foxes and Jon Savage (45min 57sec)

Sand dunes & sonic booms

Video: World Press Photo 2008 (3min 19sec)

Video: Wayne Coyne on Christmas on Mars (2min 42sec)

Video: Feminist go-go girls (2min 18sec)

Reel review: Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2min 31sec)

Books podcast: Anita Shreve (12min 07sec)

Film Weekly podcast: Jason Solomons meets Mark Strong and Paddy Considine (35min 05sec)

John Crace digests All in the Mind by Alastair Campbell (13min 11sec)

Susan Hiller: Private view with Adrian Searle (9min 57sec)

Women war photographers capture conflict

Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize: Cheer up love, it's only a credit crunch

Observer/Cape Graphic Short Story Prize: What do other married people talk about?

Porn film opening scenes

• Music

  Jackson sued

  Michael Jackson is being sued for $7m for failing to deliver an album
  

• Books

  Poem of the week

  Carol Rumens on Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress
  

• McLean on TV

  Drama, not crisis

  Laura Mackie is getting ITV drama back on track, says Gareth
  

• Film

  You review

  Did Zack and Miri Make A Porno leave you hot under the collar?
  

• Jones on art

  Sceptical spirit?

  Susan Hiller is preoccupied by the paranormal
  

• TV and radio

  Weekend TV

  Sam Wollaston is moved by The Fallen, a portrait of loss and grief
  

• Art and design

  Best of the press

  In pictures: Nominees for the World Press Photo contest