2006

Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece: A Lacanian Reading

Shel Silverstein’s book The Missing Piece creates a system of relations between beings where the structure of desire is presented without gender, but references a division between beings that resembles gender.

Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity

In Outlaws of America, Dan Berger’s history of the Weather Underground, we get a full-color portrait of the reasons why astute young people might want to be revolutionaries. Berger does a good job sketching the causes and justifications of a complex movement, but more than that, this book provides a cultural history of a vanguard of revolutionaries.

The 2006 Slingshot Organizer

For those of you outside of the punk rock/anarchist loop, Slingshot is a political collective based out of Berkeley that has been publishing their pocket-sized organizers for a full decade now; using the proceeds to fund their main project, Slingshot Newspaper. The organizer contains a ton of great information...

Critical Moment

Ann Arbor—home of the University of Michigan and rousing radical newspapers—has seen fifteen issues of its Critical Moment.

Walls of Heritage, Walls of Pride—An Author's Reply

Response to a Bad Review of his book that reeked of self-promotion.

The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of A Beast

Charlie Bertsch
A review of the latest album by the San Francisco-based electronic music duo Matmos, arguing that it promotes a politically salutory "listening for context."

Brick

A review of the 2006 film Brick, praising its cinematography and sound-editing, but questioning the value of its relentless referencing of other pictures, particularly those of David Lynch

Matmos_Matador_Publicity_Photo_2006

Matador publicity shot of Matmos, circa 2006.

An Inconvenient Truth

I must say, it’s honestly impressive to hear someone draw the links between problematic human behavior and environmental degradation without making a single solitary inference to the fact that capitalism itself—especially our current hedonistic consumer-based version—is 100% unsustainable and based upon the founding premise of “I’m gonna get mine and screw the rest of you.”

gore photo

 

Bon Cop, Bad Cop

Jonathan Sterne
A Canadian take on the old cop buddy movie genre raises questions about the relationship of language and race.

"Paris, Je t'aime": Je l'aime, plus ou moins

This is a film of multiple shorts that each take a neighborhood of Paris for its vignette and statement. Unfortunately, most stick to well-known neighborhoods in the international tourist imagination. The ones that ventured into working class, immigrant or less touristy neighborhoods were among the most creative and moving.