The Self-Cleaning Oven
February, 1994
We first heard the descriptive phrase of our title in a profile of novelist Richard Price. Price was discussing his book about drug dealers in the South Bronx. Writer Ron Rosenbaum captured the moment: ''Crack, needle drugs, AIDS and crime are killing off so many victims in the ghettos, both predator and prey, that the plagues are beginning to burn themselves out for lack of new souls and bodies to consume. 'You know what the cops call that?' Price asks. 'The self-cleaning oven.'''The phrase too...
