Friday, April 16 2010
Backyard Fiction a.k.a. the Great American Myth of Suburbia
Suburban discontent in Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road, John Updike's Couples and Richard Ford's Independence Day. The idea or myth of suburbia is just as real as the municipalities, shopping centers, living rooms, and schools that represent that idea.
Thursday, April 8 2010
Butch Dyke or Earth Mother or Something Else Entirely?
For years, society had two perceptions of what lesbians look like. Today, high fashion and lesbians aren't such strangers -- and it's getting harder to tell, Is She or Isn't She?
Wednesday, March 31 2010
Thursday, March 18 2010
Born This Way
Imagine inhabiting a body that was completely contradictory to what your mind said was right for you. How far would you go to make your body reflect who you really are?
Wednesday, March 17 2010
The Nonchalant Brilliance of John Pizzarelli, Jr.
John Pizzarelli is cool enough to be modern but hot enough to be 'old' -- and he knows what he's doing with that voice, even if he's no Sinatra.
Thursday, March 11 2010
Percy Sutton: A Peoples’ Aspirations Personified
Sutton's life as a soldier, lawyer, politician and businessman left a vast legacy not only to Harlem, but to all of America.
Monday, February 22 2010
Howard Zinn: The Dying of a Light
A tribute to the signature interwar polymath: the historian, activist, dramatist, dockyard worker and teacher Howard Zinn.
Friday, February 19 2010
The Digital Surplus and Its Enemies
While we are building identity in social networks, our online behavior generates a plenitude of information, meanings and content that constitutes a "cognitive surplus" generated by the "hive mind".
Thursday, February 11 2010
Loser!
There will come a time, inevitably, where nearly every fan will find themselves backing a loser.
Wednesday, February 10 2010
For Your Consideration: Trophies for Queers
Latins have the ALMAs, African-Americans the NAACP Image Awards, Christians the Dove Awards, so why isn't there a serious awards show given by the LGBT community for LGBT artists?
Thursday, January 28 2010
The Ice Storm: America Out in the Cold
Ang Lee captures the '70s on film the way Rick Moody captures the era in the book The Ice Storm. It's the midst of the sexual revolution, the Watergate scandal is erupting, and the country's social consciousness is changing.
Wednesday, January 27 2010
Just Drawn that Way
Like their straight counterparts, LGBT comics offer a wide range of world-views. Were they to gain more attention in traditional media, they could help convince that there is no such thing as a "typical" gay or lesbian.
Friday, January 22 2010
Designing Consent
Industrial design aspires to the commanding heights of consumer society, building its policy prescriptions and dogmatic assumptions about what makes us happy directly into the objects available to us.
Curse Ye, Orwell!
Orwell declared that there are “four great motives” for writing: sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, and political purpose. As for the rest of us...
Thursday, January 21 2010
Pop Culture’s IQ: The Downward Spiral
How can you explain the difference between Julia Child and Rachael Ray without acknowledging the elephant in pop culture's living room? We're getting dumber.
Friday, January 15 2010
Obsessing About Black Beauty Never Goes Out of Fashion
The year 2009 saw no shortage of jumping-off points for wrestling with how black folks regard their visages, how everyone else regards black visages, and how we all negotiate the distance between the two.
Monday, January 11 2010
The Mods: A Very British Coup
PopMatters debuts our new fashion column. Swinging London’s Mods were at the cutting edge of the fashion world, setting a trend of rebellious dress that altered practically nothing from the standards of contemporary British society.
Friday, December 18 2009
The Big Nowhere: Rudy Wurlitzer’s Rediscovered Trilogy and Bob Dylan Revisited
The myths of unspoiled frontiers and the freedom of the open road, lives played out on the margins of society, attachment and detachment, wrestling matches with the ghosts of Samuel Beckett and Louis L’Amour…
Thursday, December 17 2009
The Best of Slugging Santas and Fightin’ Father Christmases
Sliding down chimneys in the middle of the night is not without its risks, which is why Santa needs to be one tough elf with survival tactics and fighting skills.
Monday, December 14 2009
Troublemakers: Adam Lambert and Will Phillips
Adam Lambert and Will Phillips have a lot in common. Both have publically pushed boundaries of what is deemed socially allowable.
