Thursday, June 23 2011
This Is Your Brain on YouTube
We seem headed towards a videosphere that captures and subdues the totality of human activity like some goopy, billion-eyed, grass-roots-driven surveillance cam.
Monday, June 20 2011
Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright: The Role of the Asian American in American Pop Culture
From New York magazine to Punk Planet, Audrea Lim shows us how recent Asian American writing sensations Wesley Yang and Amy Chua get it wrong in their interpretations of what it means to be of Asian descent in American at the dawn of the 21st century.
Friday, June 10 2011
Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style
Los Angeles’s 1943 “zoot suit riot” may be the only time in American history that fashion was believed to be the cause of widespread civil unrest.
Thursday, June 9 2011
German Bands & Cat Designs: An Interview with Katie Gallagher
Whether basing her fashion designs on cats or collaborating with German electronica groups for her shows, Katie Gallagher is a force to be reckoned with in the fashion world.
Thursday, June 2 2011
Socially Valuable Knowledge: An Interview with Louis Menand
Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard Professor Louis Menand diagnoses some of the problems in the American university system and makes some proposals for what can be done, all without the alarmism of many of his colleagues.
Thursday, May 26 2011
When Superheroes Die
The death of Randy Poffo, aka Macho Man Randy Savage, once again revealed the dark history of professional wrestling. A history replete with drug abuse, murder and suicide. In this essay a writer and fan explores the varied reactions to Savage's death; a death which created more questions than answers.
Thursday, May 19 2011
After Fukushima: An Interview with Dr. Robert Jacobs
Last week, PopMatters sat down with Dr. Robert Jacobs of the Hiroshima Peace Institute at Hiroshima University to discuss the impact, toll, and future that Japan faces following the situation at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. His insights shed much light on what has happened and what will take place in the near future ...
Monday, April 18 2011
From the Fringe of Islam: An Interview with Michael Muhammad Knight
Famous amongst orphaned Muslims -- teens and adults trying to find a place in a religion known for stringency -- Knight’s first book, The Taqwacores straddles the line between manifesto and coming of age novel.
Thursday, March 31 2011
De-Normalize Your Brain: Charlie Sheen as Prophet
Sheen is the new psychic outlaw. He is a psychopathic prophet warning of the dangers, lunacy, and criminality of the mainline media and everything they stand for. No wonder he looks so crazy.
Thursday, February 24 2011
These Long Years, and the Miles: Remembering Dwayne McDuffie
With the passing of Dwayne McDuffie this last Tuesday we're left with the loss of a pioneer in film, television and comics, and a man of singular vision.
Wednesday, February 9 2011
Life, The Universe and Everything
Like Richard Feynman before him, Dr. Leonard Mlodinow has a gift that’s all too rare in physicists – he speaks Normal Person. The physicist and author of the New York Times best-seller The Drunkard’s Walk, Mlodinow has a knack for making the complicated issues that crop up in quantum physics understandable to everyday readers.
Wednesday, February 2 2011
The Urinal: A Brief Functional and Aesthetic History
How the history of the urinal is the history of America.
Thursday, January 27 2011
What ‘Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle Can—and Can’t—Tell Us About What Happened in Tucson
Imagine all of the elements contributing to Travis Bickle’s disintegration placed in the context of contemporary culture, with venom spewed 24/7. Imagine Travis Bickle – and Jared Loughner -- watching Fox News daily.
Friday, December 24 2010
Have Yourself a Counter-Culture XMas: Red-Nosed Misfits, Elven Outlaws & Bearded Marxists
The TV versions of Rudolph, Santa, and Frosty are chaotic, freewheeling, and anarchic -- closer in spirit to Heath Ledger's Joker than to Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley.
Monday, November 29 2010
Meme Maker: The Slater-Dodson Effect
If you are a fame-seeker that is paying attention, you've seen that the best way to get noticed is to get on TV -- in whatever way possible -- and bypass the usual arbiters of entertainment. It is a recipe for fame without any marketable talent: simply create a situation that centers on you.
Thursday, November 11 2010
Why the Caged Bird Sings
TED Fellow Juliana Machado Ferreira's work focuses on bringing the latest advances in forensic science to bear against “crimes against nature. Her bete noir—and the driving factor behind her research—is the illegal wildlife trade that removes hundreds of thousands of animals, primarily birds, from Brazil’s ecosystem every year.
Friday, August 27 2010
Mythologizing Michael Jackson
Aristotle's wisdom about these protagonists suffering irreparable loss at the hands of destiny is applicable to Jackson's journey: he suffered disproportionately more than he deserved; he was intelligent and gifted at evoking pathos in his audience; and he had influence but was in conflict with external forces and internal demons. In short: he was a flawed, tragic figure.
Friday, August 20 2010
Cults of an Unwitting Oracle: The (Unintended) Religious Legacy of H. P. Lovecraft
A horror writer, self-proclaimed atheist, and "mechanical materialist" who spent most of his life ridiculing religion, H.P. Lovecraft invented one of the most absurd and terrifying pseudomythologies in the history of modern literature. So, how is it that some of his audience came to take his cosmology seriously?
Monday, June 7 2010
New Theories of Everything Prompted by Guided by Voices Appreciation Night, or, Good News
Tonight I will go belly-up in some kind of mental cloud, a meandering consideration of what tribute shows are really about, and why Guided by Voices deserves one, and what they were really about -- and that will lead to thoughts about prophecy and nihilism and Ralph Waldo Emerson and postmodernism.
Friday, May 14 2010
Challenging Stereotypes: A Yank’s Guide to Working and (Mostly) Playing in Australia
What follows is a hearty recommendation for you 18-30-year-olds wondering “Great, I’ve got a degree in English. What now?” or “Lovely, a lay-off. Cheers for that. And?”
