Features - January 2007 Browse archives by month...
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Music Take Flight: An Interview with Red Sparowes By Jennifer Kelly [31.Jan.07] :. Majestic, monolithically heavy yet full of light and air and structure, Red Sparowes' music may have been informed by metal and hardcore, but it has ended up somewhere else entirely, exploring new territories of shifting dynamics and cinematic scope.

Books Hardboiled to Hardcore: Interview with Walter Mosley By D. Scot Miller [30.Jan.07] :. "It's amazing how we strain to maintain our dignity and end up like Colin Powell, the only one who knows what the f**k is going on, but is unable to tell it." PopMatters talks to Walter Mosley.

Culture An Atomic Threat Made in America By Sam Roe [29.Jan.07] :. Beyond the fear of North Korea's or Iran's nuclear capabilities looms a more far-reaching threat: the vast amount of nuclear bomb-grade material scattered across the globe. And it wasn't Kim Jong Il or the ayatollahs of Iran who put it there. America did.

Sports Lucha Libre Unmasked By Mike Sacks [29.Jan.07] :. Lucha libre and American wrestling are propelled by the same overarching theme: the vicarious morality play, the most important theme in professional wrestling of any sort. So what has kept lucha libre, professional wrestling in the Mexican tradition, out of the American mainstream?

Film Legendary Weapons of Hong Kong By Michael Buening [29.Jan.07] :. When their films bog down in plot contrivances, Chor and Chang share a baroque leadenness. By contrast, Chia-Liang offers nimble entertainments.

TV Different Worlds: Does The OC endorse the economic segregation that threatens America? By Susan McWilliams [26.Jan.07] :. As The OC (and recent films such as Bring It On or Save the Last Dance) reflects, Americans are increasingly likely to live class-bound lives in class-bound places.

Culture The Radical Christian Right Is Built on Suburban Despair By Chris Hedges [26.Jan.07] :. Millions of Americans live trapped in soulless exurbs which lack any kind of community, leaving them feeling isolated and vulnerable. Without alternatives for their social despair, they flock to demagogues promising revenge and a mythical utopia.

Music Hip Hop Is Dead: Art, Culture, & Tradition By Quentin B. Huff [25.Jan.07] :. Homer, Dante, Milton, and Nas: It's bigger than Hip Hop Is Dead.

Music One More Drifter in the Snow: An Interview With Aimee Mann By Greg M. Schwartz [24.Jan.07] :. The songwriter looks at the ghost of Christmas past while moving forward.

Comics No Girls Allowed!: Crumb and the Comix Counterculture By Claire Litton [24.Jan.07] :. As the standard-bearer of the underground comix movement, Robert Crumb poisoned a blossoming genre with vehement misogyny.

Film Pixilated: Frank Capra’s Columbia Years By Zeth Lundy [23.Jan.07] :. Capra's films of the '30s are seminal works and cannot be underestimated; their influence on American film has been viral, forever infiltrating the structural and thematic templates of contemporary cinema.

Culture The Second Looting of New Orleans By Jordan Flaherty [23.Jan.07] :. The city is an international symbol of neglect and racism. But the federal government isn't the only one to blame.

Media What Happened to Our Voice? By Sarah Feldman [22.Jan.07] :. PopMatters investigates the sad trajectory of the Village Voice after merging with the national-weekly behemoth New Times Media.

Music A Darker Shade of Bunk By Ross Palmer [22.Jan.07] :. A recent ruling regarding the royalty rights to Procol Harum's 1967 classic "A Whiter Shade of Pale" could have severe implications for all UK songwriters.

Music Hoots, Hollers and Barbaric Yawps By Zeth Lundy [19.Jan.07] :. A field guide to unscripted exclamations in the pop-music wilderness.

Sports More Honest, More Accountable, More Alive: A Conversation with Deadspin.com Editor, Will Leitch By Geoffrey M. Schmidt [19.Jan.07] :. Will Leitch: I don't believe anyone goes to the site to hear what Will Leitch thinks about sports, if you'll forgive my brief venture into the third person.

Music All for One and One for All: An Interview With Swan Lake By Jennifer Kelly [18.Jan.07] :. What happens when you throw three of indie rock's most eccentric songwriters together in a remote cabin on Vancouver Island -- with only guitars and mics for amusement and the nearest bar over a dangerous mountain pass? Swan Lake, that's what.

Culture The Birth of an Idea: Instant Nation By Chadwick Jenkins [17.Jan.07] :. The history of the United States is essentially the history of an idea; the idea that all men are created equal, and its gradual manifestation in actuality with all of its contradictions and hypocrisies.

Sports Becks Chooses Life By John Davidson [17.Jan.07] :. As a football fan, you can’t help feel that, somewhere along the line, it didn’t happen on the field in quite the way that it should have.

Music Blacklist [New York] By Jon Garrett [17.Jan.07] :. Born out of twin interests in art and activism, the murky and even problematic practice of either has given way to a band that perches on the ledge between hipster fashion and scene critique.

Sports David Beckham for Nothing? The Economics of the Deal By Steven C. Hull [16.Jan.07] :. Phillip Anschutz stands to make a few million dollars profit on Mr. Beckham with virtually no downside risk.

Culture Barbra Streisand: Lessons from a Lesbian Icon By Marci Windsheimer [16.Jan.07] :. The existence of gay male fans of Barbra is well documented and highly visible, but in the lesbian community, our fandom is just as long lived, though not as well known.

Multimedia A Final Farewell to Arcades By Ryan Smith [16.Jan.07] :. It was about a community of like-minded misfits. It was about sticking it to the Man.

Books Readers’ Delight: 2006 in Books By PopMatters Staff [15.Jan.07] :. This is not your average best-of list. Showing their pop colors, while maintaining (somehow) their indie, undergroup, hipster cred, PopMatters book reviewers select the best books of 2006.

Music Slipped Discs 2006 By PopMatters Staff [12.Jan.07] :. PopMatters' writers share their favorite albums that no one else, including their colleagues, noticed.

Film A Symbol of Transition: Interview with Guillermo del Toro By Cynthia Fuchs [11.Jan.07] :. Guillermo del Toro: It's not like there was no cruelty before or no brutality before. But the fact that now people can go out in the open about it, publicly, and not be shamed, even be proud of it!? I think it's a very dark time right now.

Music Searching for John Darnielle By Brian Heater [11.Jan.07] :. The details of the Mountain Goats leader's life remain surprisingly vague for a confessional singer-songwriter.

Film PopMatters Picks: The Best TV, Film, and DVDs of 2006 Series edited and produced by Bill Gibron, Cynthia Fuchs, Robert Wheaton and Sarah Zupko. [11.Jan.07] :. For the past week PopMatters has been presenting the best of 2006's visual entertainment. Last week was the best TV, DVDs and film of 2006. This week look for genre picks and best performances from a range of our staff critics. On tap today: Best TV Characters 2006 Best of TV on DVD.

Film Primal Screens: Mark Savage and Australian Independent Cinema By Bill Gibron [9.Jan.07] :. A promiment figure in Australia's burgeoning genre scene, Mark Savage is more or less unknown in America. Now, thanks to a stellar DVD overview of his two decades behind the camera, he's finally poised to take his place among independent cinema's standouts.

Sports Football Factory, Greek Style By Michael Paterakis [8.Jan.07] :. A look inside a typical European derby, where hooliganism acts as a form of support.

Culture Sex, Hope and Rock and Roll: A Conversation with Ellen Willis By Chris O'Connell [7.Jan.07] :. Chris O'Connell remembers a very personal and poignant conversation with political essayist, journalist, and rock critic Ellen Willis.

Film Dreaming Out Loud: Robert Altman at the IFC Center By Mike Ward [4.Jan.07] :. Robert Altman's films often reveal in dreams the strangeness of being alive. This more than anything sums up the timeless greatness of Altman at his best, and starts to convey what’s lost when cinema is thought of as commodity rather than art.

Film “Great Tenacity”: The Real Dirt Interview By Ellise Fuchs [3.Jan.07] :. The Real Dirt on Farmer John combines home movies, archival footage, and recent imagery to consider the far from simple life of a flamboyant farmer. PopMatters interviews filmmaker and subject.

Music Soul Power By William Glasspiegel [3.Jan.07] :. Though James Brown's body was lying in state at the Apollo Theater, on the streets of Harlem, his spirit seemed to be everywhere.

Music The Last Soul Brother: James Brown (1933-2006) By Mark Anthony Neal [2.Jan.07] :. The humanity of the man -- with its funky and messy flaws and frailties -- could never sustain the myth, so much so that the image of the man who gave Black Power its soundtrack became a harsh reminder of its fractured legacy.

Music The Quieter Side of Brian Borcherdt By Sarah Elizabeth Feldman [1.Jan.07] :. If you've seen Brian Borcherdt on stage this year, chances are it was as a member of the noise-freak supergroup Holy Fuck. But it's in the quieter-but-equally-intense songs of his solo project, the Remains of Brian Borcherdt, that the singer-songwriter's talents appear in full force.

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