1: Transformers: Age of Extinction

In our first expedition we will watch the highest grossing worldwide movie of 2014, and one of the worst. Not to make fun of it (though that can not be helped) but to learn. This was the most popular movie last year and Patricia, Steve, and Steve try to parse out why people saw it …

“Look at him; no ribbons, no lace!” Cyrano teaches us old lessons

I don’t think I understood how valuable this was in freshman year English class. What a strength to have such confidence, and be able to insult yourself better than anyone else. To know that what others perceive as our weaknesses are actually strengths. Our value isn’t worn outside, but in our hearts and our actions. …

The trouble with apocalypse

The Post Carbon Institute published a thought provoking piece by Kurt Cobb on “apocalypse narratives.” We hear these narratives every day in the news and popular culture. Cobb points out they’ve done a great job to “improve ratings and book sales” and then goes one to say “Peak oil, climate change, an impending food crisis, …

Diggers: If you can act it out, it’s real.

We thought: culture is much more important than politics. Let’s just start getting people living the way they wanna live. You wanna live in a world where you don’t have to work? Let’s make it. You wanna live in a world where you can get food for free? Let’s make it. You wanna live in …

"Oblique Strategies": Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's "How to Win" card game

  Brian Eno, the father of ambient music and Peter Schmidt, an English artist, created this deck of cards called Oblique Strategies in 1975. It is now in it’s fifth edition. Via Drawn!: Oblique Strategies is a deck of cards created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt after thinking about approaches to their own work …

Politics as Product

Happy Spokesmodel Selection Day to one and all. I am certainly not the first to comment on the commodification of American politics in general and this race specifically, but a little more can be said before we’re on the next distraction tomorrow. This election has been primarily a contest between the values of experience and …

Laugh at a Campaign Pitch? Sure. Visit the Grandparents? Not So Much. – NYTimes.com

MIAMI — When Sarah Silverman told young Jews to get their lazy rotund rear ends to Florida to persuade their grandparents to vote for Senator Barack Obama, one question loomed: Would they go? This weekend was the first big test, a kickoff for the so-called Great Schlep, and so far, momentum has been building with …

Larry Flynt Producing 'Palin porno' political parody

I think the key line here actually comes at the end. “Whatever you think of Larry Flynt, the man knows his First Amendment,” Kelly concluded. Seriously, that smut monger is a true champion of the First Ammendment, and we should all remember that the freedom of speech is the freedom to be offended. Now is …

Seun Kuti

Seun Kuti was interviewed on PRI’s Sound of Young America a couple weeks ago. Choice excerpt typed below and you can listen to the whole program here: SK: Afrobeat is not pop. JT: Did you ever think that you would be – because afrobeat was certainly popular in Nigeria, it’s not *the* pop music of …