Friday, May 11 2012
Stand-Up! America’s Dissenting Tradition Part 2: Transformers George Carlin & Richard Pryor
Whereas Richard Pryor used autobiography for his comedy of social dissent, George Carlin aimed his critical lens outwards, to reflect upon a world of greed and self-delusion.
Thursday, May 3 2012
Party Machine: The Rise of Canadian Electronic Music
If Toronto is having a Seattle moment, as The New York Times called it, it's fair to say that Canadian electronic music is having a Chicago/Detroit moment.
Monday, April 23 2012
It’s Deja Vu: ‘Network’ Still Has a Finger on the Pulse of Culture, 36 Years Later
If you were to tell women in 1976 that, 36 years later, women who work exclusively in the home and those who also work outside the home would be pitted against each other, they wouldn’t have believed it.
Friday, April 13 2012
Yes, It’s Genocide: Armenian Artists and the Obligations of History
For many artists of Armenian descent, engaging with the legacy of the 1915 genocide is more than dutiful; it's of crucial importance to how we understand and confront the modern world and its troubles.
Monday, April 2 2012
When Politicians Hit Wrong Notes
From Reagan in the '80s to Limbaugh in 2012, Republicans have an uncanny knack for linking themselves to musicians who don’t support them. Just ask Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp.
Monday, March 19 2012
Politics R Us, or, Who’s Your Daddy?
Rich white guys are not the only ones who can be counted among the 1%. The label is not just about income, it’s also about privilege and position… and nepotism.
Friday, March 9 2012
Agitprop to Occupy My Time: ‘In Time’ for the Revolution
If fiction and reality could merge, the hero of the film In Time would benefit from listening to Real Time with Bill Maher, who said to the Occupy movement, "When you occupy anything for too long people do get pissed off."
Tuesday, March 6 2012
The Audibly Deteriorating Landscape
The ruins of Detroit identified a past that stands in contrast with Techno's futurism, but do the foreclosed homes, uninhabited luxury condos, and padlocked storefronts provide any kind of guide to tomorrow's music?
Friday, March 2 2012
Exceptional Claims: Principle, Personality and Christopher Hitchens
The late Christopher Hitchens helped define the character and popular perception of Atheism for this generation. But for the self-styled contrarian, where did principle end and personality begin?
Friday, January 6 2012
The 2011 Looking Glass Awards: Anger Is An Energy
Welcome to the 2011 Through the Looking Glass awards, the Anger Is An Energy edition. This was the year the whole earth shook, sending shock waves in all directions. We don't mean to imply that the seismic shifts were of equal magnitude: not every violent disturbance registered the same on our Richter scale.
Monday, December 5 2011
Subversive Sexology!: A Conversation with Annie Sprinkle!
With a pure heart and a heavy dose of body politic rebellion, Annie Sprinkle re-invents ecology in the age of eroticised digital culture.
Thursday, December 1 2011
Herman Cain and the Myth of Acceptable Black Behavior
Called a 'Stepin Fetchit', an 'Uncle Ruckus' and worse by black pundits, I have to wonder... Has Herman Cain found a way to talk about racism in America without actually saying that word?
Tuesday, November 8 2011
Humor vs. Religion: An Unholy War. Part Two: Dispatches from the Front Lines
For comedians like Ricky Gervais, Bill Maher and others, the non-rational beliefs and behaviors that religion fosters are, from a “material” perspective, manna from heaven.
Friday, October 28 2011
Art Endures, Capitalism Degenerates: The Evolving Career of Amanda Palmer
The arts have always suffered and survived in times of economic depression. Amanda Palmer has forged a career that has not only weathered the recession, but rejects the received wisdom of the music industry. Is she an exception to the rule, or an example other artists should follow?
Thursday, October 27 2011
The Celestial Railroad: Shifting Debates on the Immigrant Experience in ‘Sin Nombre’
Illegal immigration is a hotly contested topic in American society and politics. Sin Nombre opens up important questions about migration that documentaries often ignore: there is no such monolithic category as "the immigrant", and migration is not solely an economic decision.
Monday, October 24 2011
Michael Moore vs. Jon Stewart: The Self-Destruction of the American Left
Michael Moore is a populist and Jon Stewart is an elitist. The blind liberal embrace of the superficial smugness of Stewart and detachment from the heroism of Moore is the most powerful and convincing illustration of the suicidal tendencies, moral bankruptcy, and spiritual decay of the American left.
Monday, October 10 2011
The Survival of the Industrial Sonic in a Deindustrialized West
In the '90s, industrial music crossed over into the mainstream with heavy guitar and massive personalities, but blue collar labor itself was disappearing...
Friday, September 2 2011
Humor vs. Religion: An Unholy War, Part One
Even within the US, where democracy and political openness have fostered a rich tradition of rebellious humor, stains still linger from those periods when “God-is-on-our-side” attitudes swept the nation into a mass hysteria of obedience and fear.
Tuesday, August 30 2011
Your Brain in the Voting Booth
President Obama may not be everything people’s brains deceived them into thinking he was, but he’s who he said he would be all along.
Friday, July 29 2011
Kaleidoscopic Istanbul
Perhaps more than any other world city, Istanbul transforms with the seasons. In this kaleidoscopic city, thriving and chaotic, cosmopolitan with entrenched provincial colour, you sometimes feel like you’re at the centre of the world.
