A reporter spends a season trailing one of London's most infamous soccer clubs while its soul is rebuilt from scratch. A cautionary tale—for New Yorkers, especially—of super fans, gonzo money, and the doctrine that is "organic football."
North Korea's prison camps are roundly condemned as heinous, but remain untouched. When an idealistic young reporter takes on a mission to help shut them down—bearing Hemingway and Vollmann in mind—he winds up on the doorstep of the Embassy of the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.
Big-budget films tell us earthquakes are bad, volcanic eruptions can be catastrophic, and meteorite strikes—barring the presence of Bruce Willis—may kill us all. Seeking expert advice on how scared we should be.
Throughout this crisis, nothing has convinced me that massive cuts to government spending (instead of say, raising taxes, or just making sure people and companies pay their taxes) is a path to growth or recovery. So with the parting gift of austerity, Berlusconi’s departure is bittersweet. With the Greek
The subtitle of the international version of the book is “The Meltdown Tour.” Lewis acts as tour guide, showing us some ruins, dramatizing the fall with anecdotes, spouting historical hyperbole, and stitching it together with stereotypes. The book is enjoyable when the sheer ineptitude of the powerful is drawn out—
That election saw the defeat of a right-wing coalition which, allied with the far-right Danish People’s Party, earned Denmark the label of the Arizona of Europe, due to immigration policies and xenophobia. Here in Denmark, most people are happy that time’s over. A left-wing coalition has the opportunity
When they say “must,” the commenters quoted are trying to say that any other course of action is dumb, because the one they’ve proposed is better. Instead, they aren’t saying anything at all. Europe must work backwards from a vision of where its monetary system will be several
It again looks likely that Greece will default. While it hardly indicates the immediate demise of a whole continent, European politicians and markets fear the consequences for the Eurozone. John Lanchester is even more fearful. He writes in the London Review of Books that this crisis is just a single
First the bad news: Trouble remains, fundamental flaws may doom the continent, and growth isn’t happening as fast as hoped. Business and consumer confidence appear strikingly low, according to figures released this week. But of course; there’s no reason sentiment should differ from the financial markets, or that
The more I read about the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, the more I worry. It’s unclear though whether I worry more because I’m learning more about the scale of the problem, or if reading about it is, in and of itself, making me unnecessarily anxious. Politicians offer me
Case one: Speculation regarding France’s creditworthiness last week led to French shares losing 15 percent of their value. Something was responsible for fears of French exposure to Eurozone debt. NPR traced the possible source of the rumors to the Mail on Sunday, which published a piece questioning the liquidity
He is taking a seaside view of the crisis, says the Financial Times, noting that Italian economic policy is “in effect being dictated from outside as Italy becomes the latest front line in the battle to save the euro from the sovereign debt crisis.” Chancellor Merkel is on vacation, taking
The USDA recently replaced the almighty food pyramid with a color-coded pie chart. To celebrate our nation’s mixed metaphors about healthy eating, one man decides to spend a month attempting to follow every government recommendation he can find. Nowhere is pie advised.
Here’s what’s at stake should the economic crisis worsen: welfare states will cut deeper and inflict more austerity measures; there will be a weaker European voice on the world stage; and most importantly, Europe will drift further to the right, into the laps of Europe’s populist far-right
Following an emergency meeting of Eurozone countries on July 21, a “Marshall Plan” for Europe was announced and a virtual European International Monetary Fund created. A Marshall Plan for a peacetime crisis of Europe’s own making indicates just how wrong things went. Calling it a Marshall Plan in a
My explanation was pathetic. Being so close to Europe in my heart and so heavily invested in all of it in my relationship, my work, and my future, it’s time to wise up and measure the doom. From what I’ve parsed so far, everyone’s eager to avoid
Seeking greater self-discipline and new adventures, our writer moves to Berlin to play tennis--the sport that's equal parts therapy and sadism--and winds up on Nabokov's old courts.
Does your minor want to be a miner? How about a McNugget cook? Welcome to KidZania, a revolutionary theme park coming soon to the U.S. that lets kids play at corporate-sponsored employment.
If you read Outside, stay home. When we celebrate a hiker who sawed off his hand, we pay tribute to an idiot and ignore countless smarter climbers.
Overly dramatic portrayals of drowning in movies and TV spread deadly disinformation. This and other tropes show that if you believe everything you see, it could kill you.
Summer approaches, travel increases--and some people will kill you for photographing butterflies. Here's recent news on sightseeing, from Bangkok to Lars von Trier.
MIKE Deri Smith summarizes recent news, studies, and gaffes concerning overconfidence, from competitive running to the N.F.L. draft, even socialist firemen.
Around the world, water stirs up unexpected conflicts. Here's a dip into the latest headlines, and finds that beyond the haves and the have-nots are the want-mores and the take-yours.
Sitting at our new surveys desk, Mike Deri Smith rounds up the recent trends in global corruption, from Berlusconi to Jersey Shore, to New Yorkers paying rent to the Shah of Iran.
Where politics and democracy fail, nature eventually wins. A number of tyrants and world leaders are currently sick. Ranking the illest.
Having biked with the protesters, drank with the locals, and trained in a battalion to fight riot police, Mike Deri Smith sums up the clusterfail that was Copenhagen.
Drawn to Denmark to observe the U.N. meeting on climate change, our man in Copenhagen is somewhat waylaid, eating blazing fire and drinking liquified koala.
Writer seeks pen name: something simple, nothing dippy, and preferably one that avoids implying a lawyer who savors puns.
Freelance Whales cut their teeth playing jaunty pop music on the streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Recently, the Metropolitan Transit Authority granted the band a license to play in subway stations as an official member of Music Under New York, complete with banner. We spoke to one of the band’s
Sacha Gervasi is a British director, screenwriter, and journalist. His screenwriting credits include The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg. Gervasi’s directorial debut, Anvil! The Story of Anvil, a documentary about an aging Canadian metal band for whom he was a roadie in the early 1980s,
The music industry’s devil and savior bear the same name: the web. Five years later, we reconvene our panel of music blogfathers for a look into the future.
Author Tom Piazza’s latest novel, City of Refuge, was runner-up in this year’s Tournament of Books. As a music writer, he won a Grammy for his album notes to Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: A Musical Journey. TMN: During the Tournament of Books, David Rees said City of
Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has been picked to lead the war in Afghanistan, and on only one meal a day. One week spent in the general's reduced-calorie footsteps.
You don't realize how far you've come, how insignificant you are, until you look up and remember--oh yeah! There are things called stars! Two hundred stars are born every second, filling me with the sort of hope too big to be printed across a nation. Stars
Two musicians, elegant and focused modern powers, continue in guise, obscuring their true form, for their respective new releases. Bonnie "Prince" Billy and Bat For Lashes sooth us, flowing through our guts with a folk inspired hauntology and electric flourish. Will Oldham, in character as Bonnie "Prince&
It was sad to hear Silver Jews call it quits, but heartbreaking to hear founder David Berman reveal, a few hours later, that his father is the high-profile corporate lobbyist Richard Berman. David Berman Such comparisons bring souls crashing to earth. We must remember that music's power is
Elizabeth Gilbert summons the spirit of the creativity genie, getting a rare standing ovation after her talk at the TED conference. Gilbert tries to bottle the essence of the creative process, being especially smart explaining the moments when we lose that bottle--the British idiom "losing your bottle" being
Mayan apocalyptic events are scheduled for 2012, giving Democrats another four years on the carousel of fear, just as the hell-ride slowed. Documentarians Joao Amorim and Daniel Pinchbeck don't think 2012 will be the end, preferring to tug at its symbolic potential, aligning their vision with a word
Werner Herzog continues his quest for ecstatic truth in Encounters at The End of the World. The Academy Award nominated documentary shares the lives of people shaken down to Antarctica, interviews matched with choral-led underwater photography. Herzog's voice and narrative echoes through the film; colorful characters can'
If you've misplaced the Knife in all the mist, turn back and find their best half in a new guise as Fever Ray. Karin Elisabeth Dreijer Andersson nurtures her solo beats and breaths with great care, giving cavern ghosts a black-hole heartbeat, a beat and pace that LCD
Spending $3,000 on a Lego Star Wars diarama is considered obsession. Not having watched and understood the entire Star Wars series is heretical and exile-worthy. Hearing these Heretics recount the 380 minute trilogy, having watched parts of the story but never evangelicised its holiness, is much more entertaining than
Animal Collective have a new album and we have a new year. It'll take a while to get to grips with both, so I'm jumping in, spread-eagle, and soaking it up; hesitation and caution are bad resolutions. "My Girls" is all purple lightening, Koyaaniqatsi
Enguarde! Ole! Here here! In the second part of our end-of-year mini-series searching for forgotten gems in the best-of-list, Erik got down dirty with year-end lists and caught some tasty morsels that almost slipped through our nets. Let's continue wrestling with the lists--there's a lot of
Heaving in another year's haul, diamonds gradually reveal themselves as I trawl through lists and lists of the year's best music--people distilling a year of high energy and much distraction. It's being summed up with usual swish, swash, and style by Said the Gramophone
Man goes to the woods, builds fire, thinks, records album, wins huge, deserved praise in end-of-year list gatherings. Justin Vernon, Bon Iver, will soon be back with Blood Bank EP. Less snow, presumably less contemplation--he had all winter to record his previous work--though the layers continue to pile on as
The supposed end of the world, the last amplifier. No great crescendo, just the open air, desert breeze, a bright white light. Or is this the end for us all? Like the Titanic's unflappable violinists, the end of the world isn't all post-rock--it can be dipping
This vs That. Lobsters vs Godfather II. In this video, some architects, as part of their work with the Counter-Intuitive Comparison Institute of North America, ask us to think about the relative advantages of McDonalds, seahorses, English people. They contend that thing-literacy is important to designing the places we live
I feel for Iceland. They've got supermarket flags flying over their parliament, they've spent way too much money. It's economic meltdown for real. You wouldn't blame them hibernating til spring, emerging with hope that the glacial movements of recession have retreated back
Before, Larkin Grimm sung folk for the forests--see her myspace for country chanting, etc. Now, she rides out of the trees on great magical horses--like a Tolkienian spaghetti western. Years back, Larkin Grimm persuaded a crowd and I to lie on the floor and engage in some astro-traveling. She walked
As much as I like video-games, it's always better to be outside. This trailer for video game CUBE offers the technology that "makes calculators look like the cotton gin." It makes a compelling case to avoid the computer, and instead, as I do, try to beat
Beach House's spooky and warm lo-fi pop music continues to breeze past. Beach House pause for thought and take a literal, not musical, break from woozy synths and a steady heartbeat drum-machine pace. I'm inclined to sit, drift and reconsider their dark and spiritual sounds. I
Until climate change becomes climate changed, until the ice surrounds us, freezes the waves, the surfers, and the sharks in place until spring, we'll have urban wakeboarding. Badly designed and function-less moats tried to dull the shock of aging concrete towers, but now they provide an impressive location
When I get stuck, when I'm uninspired and want surprise I check in with a music blog like no other. Motel De Moka wakes you up from your mid-afternoon daze, throws water on your face, then tells you their thoughts on back porch blues or the philosophical dance
Herein lies hardcore rock. The flutes that open Fucked Up!'s latest album loosen up all the muscles you'll need to react swiftly to an unexpected delivery of sweaty new heroes. Fucked Up! recently played a 12 hour show where even Moby was involved--not so punk rock.
A human rights PSA delivered in a quasi High School Musical fashion is strangely compelling. There are no colorful songs about the status quo--it's a boring gray reality of in-school cops, and CCTV--but we can enjoy the same ratio of school-yard hunk to out-cast girl to feelgoodness, and
Folk music isn't all bearded backwoodsmen and bohemian activists. Traditionally, American folk music has been a joyous and mesmerizing thing--beatniks and '60s folk revivalists take note. Sacred Harp is a type of Southern spiritual music in the folk tradition, named after the sole sacred instrument used in
Intimate relationships with computers can get a little too much, even for your most progressive electro band. Chromeo, below, take part in a strangely familiar reality show, complicating matters. P-Thugg and Dave 1 share their experiences, as the digital Juliet gets between them. "I'm just in love
I do not enjoy unarmed combat with the irrepressible background noise machine that the media starts up at every opportunity; nine pundits on one screen, immediate and inevitably colorless analysis, instant positive/negative approval graphs. That's why "From Our Own Correspondent," a BBC podcast and radio
I think about the bailout and imagine a Wall Street investor flailing about in a kids' splasher pool crying 'cause the big-boys pushed him in. The latter-termed Rescue Package makes me imagine a coast guard descending from a helicopter regretting the stupidity of those stranded in sea of
Bono is blogging about bureaucracy, manga comics, and celeb spooting, tag-teaming Jeffrey Sachs, beating world poverty and global injustice with a steel-chair on a blog for The Financial Times. At the same time 'Lil Wayne is blogging about sports for ESPN. After a decade with the internet, the cognitive
Listening to Bjork's entire back catalog early this year, I met five hours of pop music, experimental sounds, lots of magic. After years of shallow appreciation, immersion provided the best, most proper introduction. This summer I've been giving Smile Down Upon Us a lot of my
TV on the Radio's first two efforts were rough and sharp: There was a lot of spirit but a lot of weight in those works. Though, to call them "efforts" is unnecessary as they were always cruising, doing something very special between shoegaze and rock music
Lessons start again this month across schools in the Western world, whilst Lehman Brother's and AIG got schooled in the pitfalls of unregulated capitalism. Election year guarantees we will learn a lot about the people wanting to to run the country for a few years. Who knew that
You shouldn't be disappointed that the one in 50 million chance of apocalypse didn't happen this week; you should be pretty damn happy that nothing exciting happened to reward those watching the live web-feed at CERN, the particle accelerator in Switzerland. Friends and I are sure
The words "folk," "pastoral," and "Tropicalia" ensure I read the whole piece and listen to whatever music is being pushed my way--"Tropicalia" references the hazy, Brazilian psychedelica to which Deerhunter side-project Atlas Sound are often compared. "Jam session," in
Ed Rondthaler, 103, a typographist since the age of five, tells us why spelling is D-U-M, championing simplified spelling in a very smart video from House Industries. He reminds thousands of webcam-empowered YouTube ranters that when you've got something to say you should be subtle, familiar (not creepy)
The music of James Blackshaw, 12-string guitar virtuoso, elegantly drones and is perfect for drifting--in and out of the room, in and out of concentration, between the city, silent trains, and the ocean. "Infinite Circle" is really about these sorts of grand and complete movements. Derek Walmsey of
It took a visit to New York and the combination of disorientation and fatigue to allow me to really enjoy the recently unmasked British musician Burial. I think you really have to listen to his music in the right place, in the right frame of mind, to enjoy it properly.
The only words I can make out are “all day holiday” and “parachute”—Shugo Tokumaru sings the rest in Japanese at great speed. Tokumaru’s “Parachute” offers neither serene floating nor salvation; it is a fast-thinking, multi-instrumental, standing-to-attention kind of song. Bells, guitar, glockenspiel are all played quickly and causes
Broken Social Scene don’t make albums anymore. No, that Canadian group hug now presents, or at least one of their members presents them—gives them a formation, arms them, and sends them out to battle. Last time out it was Col. Kevin Drew organizing the troops, but this week
“So Fast” is well-punctuated, well-announced, and sufficiently well-thought of that it is the first track on Julie Doiron’s reissued Loneliest in the Morning. Ten years after the release and much more than a decade since she left noise-pop outfit Eric’s Trip, Doiron’s subtle and acoustic meditation on
This matinee performance relies on the stage disintegrating, tumbling, torn down by actors who demand something sleek and so un-Dr. Dog. From a just-out fifth album, the lament of “The Old Days” is the final protest in the final act, and it’s a damn rousing song. I was yesterday
One can’t help but get swept up by it all. This is a rock n’ roll life-affirmer that’ll last for months, way past the stadiums where we sang, past gutters that you fell you into. Things change, but we’ll keep singing, we’ll keep falling, and we’
Thank God for dance music. And guitars. “Antibodies,” from Poni Hoax’s new album Images of Sigrid, is like that workout tune LCD Soundsystem penned for Nike. It pumps hard and wants to to motivate you, keeps you out when you are either out of it at 12 miles gone,
When I was in jail last night it was dark, raining, and roofless—with an abundance of cell-phones. I woke up from this dream with a hangover, glad not to be in jail. Micah P. Hinson spent some time in jail in his youth; this rebellious hangover could have suffocated
I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but ABBA will never tour again. Mamma Mia!, the musical and upcoming film that samples heavily from their back catalog, will keep them happy for the next few years—we can only assume. If there were any life
I rarely find music I (wrongly) assume to be indie rock so stirring and spirited. Said the Gramophone find that in “Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey,” wherein Bodies of Water “…starts shouting the colors and I can see them right there. I kind of listen to this music the same
Dusty and spiritual, Finnish duo Paavoharju represent Scandinavia with something churned up and surreal in “Kevätrumpu.” Pavvoharju don’t just wander and drift amongst their collage of noise, they work hard to carve an identity during what sounds like some sort of ritual ceremony led by a beat of bells.
Beck’s latest album, Modern Guilt, is ambitious but it sees his sound reduced, filtering out some unnecessary digital noise from his previous work, 2006’s The Information; cell phone rings that were good, clean fun inspire little except the desire to not party. The vagueness of “Chemtrails,” however, hints
