by Eric Van Hoose

The Art of Exploitation

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What makes Amanda Palmer’s form of exploitation particularly clever is that it doesn’t look like exploitation — it looks like happy people sharing a good time.

What Can We Learn from the Harlem Shake?

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The more aware we become of the ways in which form influences content, the more we can learn about what our memes say about us.

Exciting New Online Literary Magazines

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With so many online literary magazines and journals, it can be hard to keep up with the newest and most exciting. Here is a guide to some new up and comers.

You Can’t Spell Chart Without A-R-T

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There are some places in the musical landscape that are unforgivable, that showcase a wretchedness beyond the thoughtless, market-driven lyrics and forever-grinding standard tempos of pop-music machinery. I’m talking about knock-off pop music.

Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt – Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco

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As tragically optimistic as Hedges seems to be about the direction of the Occupy movement, it’s disheartening that he doesn’t seem to have as much faith in his previous arguments or in his audience’s ability to absorb them.

Why I Don’t Like Argo

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To see this film so widely and uncritically embraced might be a testament to how accustomed people have gotten to absorbing this kind of distortion from Hollywood.

Writer Types

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That so many writers are asked how they write by interviewers, that there’s such a fetishisation of the writing process, is more than a little unsettling.

My Way on the Highway

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These people decided they wanted a giant statue of Jesus in front of their church, and they’re going to have it, no matter what. It’s the story they want to tell, and they’re telling it.

Why Breaking Bad Might Be Good

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I’m trusting that the show is less about one man and his family and more about the inherent interconnectedness of our world — that it is less interested in its characters’ actions themselves than in their far-reaching consequences.

What it Sounds Like After You’ve Gone Soaring

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There’s a new trend in pop music: a sibilant, machine-like, static white-noise. Since these things are supposed have names, let’s call it “the fizz.”