46: No Alternative

Alternative Schmalternative

Annalee Newitz, Joel Schalit
Instead of politicized culture, we have "alternative culture," a leisure pursuit designed for educated liberals and disgruntled radicals like ourselves in search of morally self-conscious aesthetic pleasures.

I'd Rather Be a Whore Than an Academic

Anonymous
It's up to each individual whore to decide whether she or he wants to make themselves visible and how they want to do so. But you can bet that some will find each other and talk about it.

Zines Are Dead

John Marr
The web has made a reality out of the fantasies of certain dewy-eyed zine theoreticians. 95% of all zines were/are crap. On the web, this percentage is at least 99%.

Ecstasy!

Joe McNeilly
Fox's simplistic assertions about drugs don't seem supported by research.

Soul Type Cast

Aaron Shuman
A response to Sideways Soul: In a Dancehall Style, a collaboration between Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Calvin Johnson's Dub Narcotic Sound System put out by K Records.

The Poverty of Alt.Country

Hugh Bartling
Describes a nation-wide movement to resurrect the spirit and sound of one of the United States' most revered and maligned musical genres: country.

In Search of Ronnie Biggs

David Hawkes
For all his cynicism and avarice, Malcolm MacLaren understood what he was doing far better than John Lydon; for him the Sex Pistols were not music, they were anti-music.

A Conversation with Tom Frank of The Baffler

Charlie Bertsch
For the largely over-educated and under-paid individuals who still resist the idea that mainstream media conglomerates know what's best for us, The Baffler is a beacon in the nation's cultural darkness.

Confessions of a Cultural Industrialist

Everett True
My love for the Beatles' harmonies hadn't been diminished by all the years that I'd spent hearing them unable to cope with the emotion and glorious melodies of their songs.

Abandoning Purity

Mark Robinson
The only time mainstream culture acknowledges poets is when the Laureate dies and must be replaced, or when they're doing something other than writing poetry.

No Alternative to Transcendence

Joel Schalit
One of the most revealing moments in the history of punk culture transpired in April of 1994. Nirvana's lead singer Kurt Cobain committed suicide.

Underground America 1999

Annalee Newitz
When we deal with underground film, the temptation is to think in binary terms. But...