Recent Features

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Wednesday, February 7 2007

Salon Language

By Francis Raven

Communicating aesthetic ideals and desires is daunting, even for artists. When you’re not the artist, it's even more difficult. But this is exactly the predicament in the hair salon.

America’s Pony

By Phoebe Kate Foster

Despite a short career in a dying sport, Barbaro brought something special to a nation suffering a widespread poverty of hope and deficit of inspiration.

Tuesday, February 6 2007

It Always Rains in Their California: An Interview With Menomena

By Eddie Ciminelli

From perilous weather to zealous computer-lovers to instrumental dance accompaniments, the band persists.

Fountains of Pain

By George Reisch

Why does a band so gifted at crafting pleasing pop feel the need to lash out at losers and demand we chortle at half-baked stereotypes?

Monday, February 5 2007

Few Musicians Have Won a Wider Audience for Jazz

By Charles Leroux

Has jazz legend Ramsey Lewis ever considered any career other than music? "Well, I'd watch Michael Jordan play and I'd think, 'I'll do that in the next life.' But for now, just put me at a piano and I'm happy."

May I Refer to Myself in the Third Person?: An Interview With Bobby Conn

By Jennifer Kelly

For more than a decade, prog/glam/disco terrorist Bobby Conn has been confounding interviewers with almost-plausible tales of career life as the antichrist and a mysterious missing finger, and now there's the risk that Tom and Katie might sue for libel.

Sunday, February 4 2007

Don’t Mess With Texas: The Lone Star State Loses Its Greatest Spitfire

By Terry Sawyer

Molly Ivins was one of the world's most gifted bar stool philosophers, someone who effortlessly segued into the world of ideas from the sure-footed ground of details.

Friday, February 2 2007

The Critical Untimeliness of Ultimate Prince

By Dante A. Ciampaglia

A look at the Ultimate Prince that almost never was, the two Prince fans caught up in this final Warner Bros. project, and the prince of the SuperBowl XLI halftime show who may, ultimately, save the record.

Thursday, February 1 2007

Cavemen R Us

By Michael E. Ross

GEICO's recent ad campaign offers yet another example of the ongoing search for cultural groups we can mock in public.

Twilight of the Idols

By Imran Siddiquee

When Nietzsche conceived of the superman, he didn't have a musclebound alien in red tights in mind. Rather, the hero of Superman Returns is an affront to human potential.

Apple Computers: Fun for You, Toxic for the Environment

By Jess Hemerly

Apple positions itself as the technological haven for the hip, the progressive, and the revolutionary. But when it comes to the environment, Apple is quite out of touch.

Wednesday, January 31 2007

Take Flight: An Interview with Red Sparowes

By Jennifer Kelly

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.

Tuesday, January 30 2007

Hardboiled to Hardcore: Interview with Walter Mosley

By D. Scot Miller

"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.

Monday, January 29 2007

An Atomic Threat Made in America

By Sam Roe

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.

Lucha Libre Unmasked

By Mike Sacks

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?

Legendary Weapons of Hong Kong

By Michael Buening

When their films bog down in plot contrivances, Chor and Chang share a baroque leadenness. By contrast, Chia-Liang offers nimble entertainments.

Friday, January 26 2007

Different Worlds: Does The OC endorse the economic segregation that threatens America?

By Susan McWilliams

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.

The Radical Christian Right Is Built on Suburban Despair

By Chris Hedges

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.