culture August 27, 2013

Chris Kluwe's Not-So-Unique Sparkleponies

There is a type of casual leftist who embraces a condescending, evangelical style that I once thought belonged solely to the right wing, and that always bothered me just as much as Republican policy agenda itself. The liberal version of this style is exemplified by the rabblerousing progressive website Upworthy, which is always preaching, outraged, to the choir: “Watch this writer ask one question about equality that will blow your mind,” “Share if you believe in justice,” “Think teachers are overpaid? Read this chart.” Its readers constitute an audience that moves from one outrage to another—the

culture June 28, 2012

The Loom of Ruin by Sam McPheeters

Why do Los Angeles's storytellers keep dreaming of the apocalypse?

Whether in fiction or film, from The Day of the Locust to Crash to last year's Barbarian Nurseries, narratives seeking to capture the spirit of that sprawling city always seem to fall into the same pattern. Like an LAPD surveillance helicopter's spotlight, these stories zoom from the Valley to Long Beach, lighting occasionally on select characters in different folds of the social fabric. And the moment the light hits one of these poor souls, you know they'll meet a bad end: scene by scene, act by act, these fantasies of Los

culture March 28, 2012

I Am A Very Productive Entrepreneur by Mathias Svalina

Is there anyone left who still believes it's possible to overthrow capitalism? Any presidential candidate, whether Democrat or Republican, will eagerly explain how it’s the most efficient system for satisfying human desire the world has ever known. Around the world, Communism is dead and Europe is creeping rightward. Outside of politics, artists have spent the past few decades becoming ever-better versed in markets and marketing, seeking to cash in on their role as the vanguard of the Warhol economy.

And then we have poet Mathias Svalina. His new work, I Am A Very Productive Entrepreneur,

culture September 26, 2011

Halsted Plays Himself by William E. Jones

Active in the early ’70s through the mid ’80s, Fred Halsted, the subject of William E. Jones’s new book-length essay Halsted Plays Himself, broke with gay porn conventions through his self-directed 1972 film LA Plays Itself, a charmingly weird triptych of sex scenes. Or mostly sex scenes. The film’s arresting centerpiece in fact has no actual sex at all.

A friend of mine recently came to me with the breathless news that he had just slept with a famous porn star. The performer had contacted him out of the blue on an online hook-up site. (My friend was supposed to be spending his day looking for jobs. Frailty, thy name is Manhunt.net). Excited and a little jealous, I asked the obvious question.

"Actually, it was kind of boring," he said. Then he laughed. "Come to think of it, that means it was a little like the sex in a porn movie."

Of course it was—I don’t know why either of us expected otherwise. It’s unfair to expect someone who has sex for

Sam Biederman