Considering the prominence we give it in our society, Americans seem to have a lot of trouble talking about money. All sorts of odd communicational shorthand has arisen around the rather simple concept of money, to the degree that we have found ourselves voluntarily handicapped when discussing the very thing …
Rather than do the predictable, not to mention timely and sensible, thing and write about the season première of Justified, I thought I’d take a different approach. Raylan Givens, the quick-triggered U.S. marshal who is the protagonist of the show, is played by Timothy Olyphant, who also played Seth Bullock, …
Food-addicted man-hog that I am, I somehow manage to miss key developments in industrial nutrition technology. I often fail to see the consumption-enhancement forest for the new-flavor-of-Slurpee trees, to put it another way; by way of example, despite its fascinating nature and evocative name, I only just yesterday found out …
The state of the nation as Baby 2012 makes its squalling entrance is extremely hard to gauge. The answer to the question of where we are politically, as is often the case, depends entirely on where you are standing, and what sort of filter you are looking through at the …
Welcome to 2012, Ludic legions! Whoa, I was channeling Stan Lee for a minute there, he must have gotten bottle service and nodded off. Anyway, I’d like to take this opportunity to usher in the new year and let you know what’s up for this site and for me in …
1. EVASIVE: Do you think you’re a nasty girl? 2. DEMOCRATIC: All right, everybody, let’s get a show of hands. If you think she’s a nasty girl, raise your hand and say ‘aye’. 3. PSYCHOLOGICAL: It’s not really important whether or not I think you’re a nasty girl. 4. SOCIOLOGICAL: Just …
Also country, dance, and, well, everything that isn’t metal or rap. There’s a lot of ladies on this list, and a lot of stuff from foreign countries, and two records by Texas-based singer-songwriters on MCA’s phonus-bolognus country subsidiary. I realize that my picks this year read like those of a …
People are still making rap music! Can you imagine? Maybe it’s not a trend after all. Foxy grandma even noticed some beats being jacked when she was watching Glee last week. Thank goodness for the internet, where we can keep on arguing about ‘relevance’ and ‘credibility’ until the return of cows. …
If you get paid to write about music, you have to make top ten lists at the end of the year. If you fail to do this Dave Marsh comes to your house and reads you Bruce Springsteen on Tour: 1968-2005 in its entirety. So, here goes, first with my metal …
Gotham’s Crown Point Currency Exchange is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That is why Julian Gregory Day is there. “I don’t sleep much anymore,” he explains to the man in line behind him, an army-coated Croatian with a bandage on his ear through which fresh blood …
George Orwell was right about a great number of things, and he was right about them in an extremely eloquent and insightful way. Never was he righter, and never more insightful, than in Chapter III of Down and Out in Paris and London, where he describes the stroke of bad …
Dear geeks, Congratulations! It is my understanding that you have taken over mainstream culture recently, and while this has caused consternation in certain quarters, I am the magnanimous sort, and besides, whenever someone says the words “culture war”, my eyes glaze over like a Honey Baked Ham. It has, however, …
It is in Ezekiel, near the beginning of God’s crazy-old-man period, when he admits that he deliberately gave his followers stupid ideas and made them follow intentionally bogus rules just to make them miserable and remind them who was really in charge. For all their talk of abortion, homosexuality, and …
As the Occupy Wall Street movement drags on, and law enforcement agencies make the foolish but predictable decision to respond to its persistence with violence, a fundamental contradiction begins to make itself known in our political lives. It has always been a basic assumption of even the most partisan political …
Now, before we get too far into this, let me clarify something: I am not arguing that the lottery is, in and of itself, a good investment. The odds, as everyone should be aware, are extraordinary remote, and the argument that it is a kind of regressive taxation on the …
