Features and columns on the world of popular culture. 2009-07-04T21:35:00Z Copyright (c) 2009, PopMatters.com ExpressionEngine tag:popmatters.com-think,2009:07:10 tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.95263 2009-07-10T06:00:13Z 2009-07-10T06:00:13Z G. Christopher Williams Williams considers the often strange roles that masks serve in Suda51's games and how they implicate us as players of video games. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.95100 2009-07-10T06:00:00Z 2009-07-10T06:00:00Z Emily F. Popek The paradox of the new media is that for each face-to-face interaction we sacrifice, we open up the possibility of connecting with thousands of like-minded people. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107954 2009-07-10T06:00:00Z 2009-07-10T06:00:00Z Bob Batchelor What today’s students do not realize is that what Google provides is sometimes fact and oftentimes opinion – but never answers. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107946 2009-07-10T06:00:00Z 2009-07-10T06:00:00Z Ben Medeiros As a professor of mine once opined, it is the shift from Rockwell's paranoid "I always feel like somebody's watching me" to the insistence that someone need be watching to validate private feelings. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107585 2009-07-09T06:00:06Z 2009-07-09T06:00:06Z Diepiriye Kuku The ultimate list of icons to pay performance tribute to THE icon. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107828 2009-07-09T06:00:05Z 2009-07-09T06:00:05Z Timothy Gabriele Unlike John Lennon’s clumsy attempts to appear working class or Mick Jagger’s incessant chauvinist posturing, Michael Jackson had no strong desire to be “authentic” or “real”. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107580 2009-07-09T06:00:04Z 2009-07-09T06:00:04Z Kevin M. Brettauer Oddly enough, the Jackson debacle reminds me of another recent death, that of Ronald Reagan just over five years ago. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107577 2009-07-09T06:00:03Z 2009-07-09T06:00:03Z Kiernan Curran Michael Jackson is a perennial stranger, an eccentric character with an upbringing which dwarfs any Philip Larkin-esque conception of the fucked up. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107523 2009-07-09T06:00:02Z 2009-07-09T06:00:02Z Teresa Jusino "Thriller" was the first 'meta' horror film, paving the way for much of the genre films we enjoy today. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.92518 2009-07-09T06:00:00Z 2009-07-09T06:00:00Z Shaun Huston We needn’t substitute our daily fears with the supernatural to understand what it means to adopt different identities for different purposes and to feel both tied to and apart from others, but in Barbara’s case, it helps. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107878 2009-07-09T06:00:00Z 2009-07-09T06:00:00Z Michael Caylo-Baradi Sometimes it’s not easy to locate the child prodigy and genius musician in those transformations, as though what constitutes a stellar career is only prelude and financial support for his body’s desired transformations. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.92653 2009-07-09T05:59:25Z 2009-07-09T05:59:25Z Sean Murphy Mingus Ah Um sounds like the 20th Century: it is a self-portrait of a man who helped define the direction of post-bop jazz, commenting on the country that created him. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.107763 2009-07-08T06:00:34Z 2009-07-08T06:00:34Z Tobias Peterson How has Chris Andersen managed his public relations coup? The short answer is: he's white. But a longer explanation reveals that he's black, too. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107586 2009-07-08T06:00:08Z 2009-07-08T06:00:08Z Bill Gibron Michael Jackson: a man who was made to do everything - except star in films. The Wiz more than proved this. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107581 2009-07-08T06:00:04Z 2009-07-08T06:00:04Z David Masciotra Despite my limited enthusiasm for Jackson’s music, I became increasingly shaken by the announcement of his untimely and unfortunate death, and the reality that an odd man whose reputation was tarnished by a series of accusations, was no longer in the living world. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107582 2009-07-08T06:00:03Z 2009-07-08T06:00:03Z Harry Burson With Jackson's death, we must also say goodbye to the era when an individual pop star had the power to saturate and unite. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107576 2009-07-08T06:00:02Z 2009-07-08T06:00:02Z Diane Leach My God, could that man dance. Michael Jackson moved like the love child of Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107684 2009-07-08T06:00:01Z 2009-07-08T06:00:01Z Colin McGuire We lost so much more than another legend June 25. We lost the final man to give us a glimpse into how the world of pop music should be. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107152 2009-07-08T05:59:33Z 2009-07-08T05:59:33Z shathley Q This comic offers a profound meditation on the far-reaching effects the confluence of a literary revolution, engineering miracle and scientific doctrine would have on popular culture. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.107770 2009-07-08T05:59:28Z 2009-07-08T05:59:28Z Mikita Brottman Nothing like a new iPhone to make one feel self-conscious about one’s ears. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/column/19.107756 2009-07-07T06:00:36Z 2009-07-07T06:00:36Z Monte Williams Tomine has a gift for capturing body language and facial expressions -- his characters often say more in a silent panel than most say with an entire word balloon. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107616 2009-07-07T06:00:21Z 2009-07-07T06:00:21Z Mark Reynolds But Michael Jackson and his brothers opened up and represented the possibilities of a wide, wonderful world for me at a most impressionable moment in my youth. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107574 2009-07-07T06:00:00Z 2009-07-07T06:00:00Z Lisa Torem I hope his effusive childlike enthusiasm gives him access to heaven’s gate, where maybe he can reconstruct the childhood he once lost. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107578 2009-07-07T06:00:00Z 2009-07-07T06:00:00Z Rachel Kipp Creating a mix CD is different than listening to an album. Instead of listening to artists tell their stories, you use their music to tell one of your own. ]]> tag:popmatters.com,2009:pm/feature/21.107583 2009-07-07T06:00:00Z 2009-07-07T06:00:00Z Sean Murphy No case study can come close to approximating the one-of-a-kind wunderkind who became the King of Pop. His story is unique, and will likely remain the triumphant and ultimately tragic cultural touchstone of our times. ]]>