Recent Columns

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Monday, September 28 2009

Creepy Crawly Ad Bots

By Jennifer Byrne

‘Contextual ads’ generated by Web crawlers based on private email content might provide fresh, up-to-the-second advertising copy, but these so-called geniuses are no Don Draper.

(more Pop Osmosis)

Friday, September 25 2009

Hal Ashby: Hollywood Rebel

By Rodger Jacobs

Films and books strive toward a common goal: telling a story. And very few modern filmmakers are as good at spinning a yarn as the late Hal Ashby was.

(more Deconstruction Zone)

Thursday, September 24 2009

If You’re Going to San Francisco…

By Michael Brett

The Complete Monterey Pop Festival perfectly captures the dangerously unstable compound called rock music right before it exploded and permanently altered the American cultural landscape.

(more The Rockist)

The Handmaid’s Tale: Not So Sci-fi

By Jennifer Makowsky

The terrifying, 'it could happen today' message of this story is best told in the Atwood's book, rather than the film version.

(more The Box Office Belletrist)

Wednesday, September 23 2009

The Frontier Doctor’s Fancy ‘Queen of the Cimarron’

By Kit MacFarlane

Frontier Doctor's church-prescribing gumdrop-toting hero comes face to face with the unthinkable: a tough-talkin' hard-done bad-girl with money on her mind (gulp).

(more Retro Remote)

Tuesday, September 22 2009

Brazilian Funk and Cuban Soul Heat Up the Northern Climes

By Derek Beres

A killer samba beat and an irresistible Cuban Sway: Brazil's futuristic Otto and Cuban expat Alex Cuba deliver soulful sounds.

(more Global Beat Fusion)

Monday, September 21 2009

Horrifyingly Close to Reality

By Marco Lanzagorta

Western culture’s perspective of torture is complex and paradoxical; it's considered immoral, illegal, primitive, and indecent, yet it's shocking to see that torture methods continue to be used in the interrogation of prisoners of war.

(more Dread Reckoning)

Friday, September 18 2009

Comic Re-Imagining

By Shaun Huston

Not all comic book adaptations are created equal, especially not when comparing our own imaginings with what actually happens when books are moved from print to screen.

(more Worlds in Panels)

Thursday, September 17 2009

Football v. Football: the NFL v. the Premiership

By Michael Brett

Like US football, English soccer fans observe their own ritual every weekend. I spent a weekend with fans of both sports to get a taste of exactly what drives and defines these most profitable of cultural endeavors.

(more The Rockist)

The Art of Atmosphere: From Bioshock to Wolfenstein

By G. Christopher Williams

Williams considers how the release of Bioshock has affected the way that apprehension and terror are evoked through the little details in video games.

(more Moving Pixels)

Wednesday, September 16 2009

Jazz Cellist Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’

By Will Layman

Peggy Lee—the cellist, not the late singer—is nevertheless all about singing of a sort. She talks to PopMatters about creativity and collaboration in the beautiful city of Vancouver.

(more Jazz Today)

Tuesday, September 15 2009

Captain Obama and the Final Frontier

By George Reisch

Obama's four-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new kinds of political confusion; to boldly go where no rational health-care reformer has gone before.

(more Pop Goes Philosophy)

Monday, September 14 2009

Deconstructing the Clap

By Bill Reagan

Rock music is the only art form that invites amateurs to perform along with the professionals – like an oversize version of Kumbaya -- and with predictable results.

(more Rabble Without a Cause)

Sunday, September 13 2009

Over the Line: On Sports’ “Irritable Reaching”

By Tobias Peterson

As the controversy surrounding Semenya Caster demonstrates, the sports world -- filled with statistics, measurements, and results -- is by its very nature fundamentally at odds with the chaos that surrounds it.

(more From the Cheap Seats)

Friday, September 11 2009

She and I: A Fugue

By Michael Antman

Slapping the word 'Fiction' on the cover of a book is not a "get out of jail free" card or, more accurately, a license to kill – just because memoirs have to be true, it doesn’t follow that novels should be allowed to be false.

(more Read Only Memory)

Thursday, September 10 2009

Does Late Night TV Still Matter? Part 1

By Michael Brett

With the greatest shake-up in network late-night television since King Carson left his throne, now is a perfect time to ponder where late-night television is today.

(more The Rockist)