Art, Work, and Refusal

Sara Wookey performing “Trio A” (1966) by Yvonne Rainer at VIVA! Performance Festival, Montreal Photo by Guy L’Hereux  I participated in an audition on November…

Death Dreams

 Anti-Matter: Michel Houellebecq and Depressive Realism by Ben Jeffery, Zero Books (2011)  It can be hard to keep French writer-provocateur Michel Houellebecq’s novels straight in one’s head. Like…

Don't Stop Beliebing

If it were opportunistic, it would have a better beat. It’s so earnest and guileless that it’s completely unappealing. It really shows how pointless endorsing Occupy Wall Street is as a gesture. You also can’t dance to it.

Redefining the Right Wing

Let me begin by agreeing that political conservatism is typically born in reaction and backlash...Postwar conservatism in America has certainly been defined by a series of reactions against rapid or large-scale social and political changes.

Scenes from Occupied Oakland

Had Oakland become a war zone? Did the protesters’ marches up and down Broadway and Telegraph and their attempts to reoccupy the plaza constitute a riot? How easy is it to shift the line between what is peaceful and what is violent in what activists are just calling “the movement”?