Russell Shorto: We are used to thinking of American beginnings as involving thirteen English colonies — to thinking of American history as an English root onto which, over time, the cultures of many other nations were grafted to create a new species of society that has become a multiethnic model for progressive societies around the [...]
Jordan Burchette: Men’s Shitness
Today’s dust-up involves one Jordan Burchette, who had some seemingly fantastic things to say about this past weekend’s New York Comic Con. Comic book conventions are among the few remaining refuges of sincere, unaffected fun in an otherwise odious leisurescape of extreme binge drinking set to techno or gun claps. They’re enjoyed by people of [...]
A Lapsed DC Kid Reads The Reboot, Part Four
The fourth post in this series covers the third week of the second month of DC Comics’ line-wide relaunch. In part one I looked at all of the new first issues at once, while in part two the coverage schedule went weekly, which continued with part three. This week featured thirteen second issues. My reactions [...]
The Merciless Discipline Of The Depression
Barry Werth: Beecher exalted workingmen; it was the unions and communists that he despised. Flush from his triumphal return to the national stage, he withstood the predictable scorn of the strikers and their sympathizers, who thought his widely reprinted “bread and water” sermon sanctimonious and hypocritical — profoundly unchristian. More lacerating were the barbs of [...]
A Lapsed DC Kid Reads The Reboot, Part Three
The third post in this series covers the second week of the second month of DC Comics’ line-wide relaunch. In part one I looked at all of the new first issues at once, while in part two the coverage schedule went weekly. This week featured thirteen second issues, and the launch of two more mini-series. [...]
More, Louder, Crazier
Throughout it’s global 2011 season, Can’t Stop the Serenity presented to audiences an introductory video which included remarks from Joss Whedon. In those remarks, he discussed the impact of CSTS across the first six years of its existence, and declared his intention to increase his own efforts to promote Equality Now in 2012, the year [...]
A Lapsed DC Kid Reads The Reboot, Part Two
While the first post in this series came at the end of the first month of DC Comics’ line-wide relaunch and covered all of the new first issues at once, the rest will post weekly and cover the second issues as well as any new series that launch. This week featured thirteen No. 2s and [...]
The Gamble Of Amnesia As Narrative Shortcut
Let’s make it clear up front that I’ve been enjoying Terra Nova. Unlike many of the people I follow on Twitter, I went into it expecting it to be precisely what it appeared to be: an old-fashioned family adventure show of the type no one seems to try to make anymore. And, for the first [...]
Anchor Me Here
Just after midnight AKDT (really, a bit later due to the vagaries of Internet access in the vast upper region of the United States), Alaskan singer-songwriter Marian Call released her long-awaited double album, Something Fierce. Noticeably looser than Vanilla and less overtly geeky than Got to Fly, the funk is a little funkier, the play [...]