Last summer I lost my job, like many others amid the COVID-19 pandemic. From a young age, I’ve worked around live music and concerts, but like many other young people, I was designated to be laid off when the shows stopped. It was in this moment that I was faced with a life defining choice: finally watch The Sopranos, or try to get into the Grateful Dead. I told a friend about my choice, and when they gave me a rather large bag of mushrooms, I took it as a sign. Read more.
Drawing in a rather laid-back, sketchy style, the artist known only as "Snail" has exploded in social media popularity recently, gathering over 40,000 followers on Twitter and almost 8,000 on Instagram. Their art runs the gamut from funny to surreal to downright sad, but it's always interesting. Read more.
The first spirited Black Lives Matter protest in Washington, D.C. after the police murder of George Floyd occurred on May 29, 2020. Beginning their march near the Frank D. Reeves Municipal Center on U Street, several hundred justice-starved Washingtonians descended on the White House, led by local Black organizers. Read more.
The concept of 'human rights,' a bourgeois invention of Western modernity, is commonly used as a interventionist bludgeon by Euro-American countries against less powerful, peripheral states to justify economic and military suppression. Read more.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel is perhaps the premier 'hipster' album, and has become a popular meme in the online music world. Released in 1998, the album quickly developed a cult following that still persists to this day. Read more.
VTubers, short for Virtual Youtubers, are blowing up these days. Read more.
Bahamut Lagoon is an extraordinary hidden gem among the plethora of Super Famicom / Super Nintendo JRPGs, and will celebrate its 25th anniversary in February of this year. Developed by Square and released solely in Japan in 1996, the game was never officially translated into English or licensed abroad, much to the chagrin of Western fans. Read more.
In the wake of the violent storming of the United States Capitol on January 6th that left several dead, including one murdered cop, roughly 20,000 National Guardsmen deployed to Washington, D.C. to protect President-Elect Joe Biden's upcoming inauguration. For context, this means there are more U.S. troops in capital of the United States right now than in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria combined. Read more.
Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1946, Mark S. Geston began writing science fiction novels as a student in the 1960s. Read more.
Immigrants to the West, who grew up under the brain-damaging effects of modern Hollywood cinema, would probably enjoy this list of Four Great Asian Movies. This is far from being a "best of all time" list; it's more like a starter kit containing a wide variety of flavors from which to pick and choose. Read more.
