Revisiting the Catholic Worker Movement: Dorothy Day and Anarcho-Socialist Christianity
Kaya Oakes07.21.10
Dorothy Day was a radical socialist single mom who founded the Catholic Worker movement. Catholic Workers are more likely to be found cooking food at your local punk house or at meetings of the I.W.W. than at the Vatican. Should she be nominated for sainthood or your next tattoo? Here, Kaya Oakes, author of Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, makes a strong case for the tattoo.
The Life You Save May Be Bill’s: An Interview with Tom Bissell
Matthew Simmons06.06.10
A phenomenally talented writer with a strong sense of logic and history, Tom Bissell has often explored war and its moral complexities in his writing, including as a reporter in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the last few years he has also become the veteran of "eight- or nine-hundred digital wars." As he confessed in a recent excerpt from his book Extra Lives in the UK Observer, Bissell spent three years high on cocaine and playing video games while his formerly prolific writing ground to a halt. Videogames have recently become not only his obsession but his subject. Along with his recent book he has become The New Republic‘s resident video game critic, a first for the magazine. Following the firestorm surrounding Roger Ebert’s comments about why video games are not art, Bissell and Simmons hazard the opposite opinion and discuss the conflict between interactivity and narrative, as well as their possibilities.
Pottymouth
Kevin Sampsell04.15.10
The oral aspect of sex can’t be overestimated and here Kevin Sampsell presents several case studies of the way we talk during the act. Sampsell is the author of the recent memoir A Common Pornography and proprietor of Future Tense Press. Art by Danny Jock.
Rupaul’s Drag Race
Bradford Nordeen02.05.10
The growth of positive depictions of gay chracters and themes on television likely has as much to do with advertising demographics as recent shifts in public opinion and, true to form, Rupaul’s Drag Race is packed with as many product placements as the other reality TV shows it mirrors. Bradford Nordeen, author of Fever Pitch, highlights the pleasures and frustrations that the show has to offer as well as how it literalizes Warhol’s maxim about fifteen minutes seconds of fame.
The Chase is Always Better Than the Kill
Michael Louie12.19.09
Michael Louie spent five weeks deep in the trenches during the first annual Brooklyn Fishing Derby, which happened to start the first day of mandatory fishing licenses for all New York saltwater anglers. He seeks out the secret and hidden fishing spots amongst the new development and regimented city property and finds that maybe he’s not quite the terrible fisherman he thought he was.
The New Era of Blackface
Louis Chude-Sokei12.17.09
Around Halloween the question was asked is "blackface Hitler" a culturally acceptable costume? Would it be viewed as an example of, as Louis Chude-Sokei says, "meta-anti-racism" or a bad joke in the worst kind of taste? Both? Chude-Sokei is the author of The Last Darky: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora, a finalist for the 2005 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. With a perspective rooted in African diaspora, here he paints a sharp contrast between recent incidents of blackface in American pop culture, such as this season’s premiere of Madmen and Robert Downery Jr. in Tropic Thunder, and blackface traditions outside the U.S. in Mexico, Turkey and West Africa. As in his recent talk on murdered African reggae star Lucky Dube, Chude-Sokei offers a unique perspective on the communication between cultures.
The Fairy’s Hole: Vincent Fecteau’s Caveman Sculpture
Derek McCormack09.11.09
Author Derek McCormack takes us down the fairy’s hole, from the fairy grottoes of Georgian England on down through André’s beauty parlor on The Flintstones, to the modern, colorfully garish, ponderously beautiful, holey fake forms of Vincent Fecteau, now on view at Matthew Marks in New York City.
‘and so his noise was ours too for those times’ – On Ronald Tavel (1936 – 2009)
Jennifer Krasinski04.24.09
So the story goes that Andy Warhol needed a narrator’s voice when he made the move from silent pictures to "talkies." And Ronald Tavel had just the voice, i.e. the serpent in the garden he sought after. But Tavel turned out to be an artist far greater than Andy originally bargained for. He built his name with Warhol sure, as his narrator and screenwriter, but Tavel’s own projects of poetry, fiction, and especially the theatrical arts are in a class all their own, as he took his audience from the tame waters of the "absurd" out into the utter "ridiculous." Jennifer Krasinski gives Tavel, who died earlier this month, a proper sendoff. Illustrations by Danny Jock.
Roid Rave: Steroids, They Do A Body Good?
Jordan Heller03.05.09
When the news of A-Rod’s steroid use broke, cries of "cheater" were bandied about the tabloids, but nothing of how the slugger may have negatively affected his health. If the health risk is minimal, and steroids can help get a player into the Hall of Fame, what can they do for the rest us? Jordan Heller reports. Art by Danny Jock.
Five Hundred Eighty-Six Days, Fourteen Hours, Forty-Six Minutes, Eleven Seconds
Michael Louie09.05.08
Quitting an addiction, any addiction, is no easy matter. Whether it’s crack, meth, heroin, or an MMO, the longer one pursues a dragon (or maybe an Orc in this case), the harder it is to give up the chase. But Michael Louie’s on the wagon now, from a video game. And after his time given over to a Final Fantasy (FFXI to be precise), Louie looks back at his lost weekend that turned into, added up to, well…the game runs the numbers for you.
