<begin column> If you can’t tell by now, let me make it clear—my tastes in entertainment these days run a little on the adolescent side.  Arnold.  James Bond.  Avatar.  Explosions.  Capers.  Caped heroes.  A few of the ‘90s era Spectre comics I just bought have glow-in-the-dark covers.  They still work after 15 years!  What’s the... »

“It is impossible to spend the coming day in faith if we do not think of it as the last day of our life.” ~ St John Climacus I. A small blob of light in the distance bounces delicately back and forth. It comes slowly into focus, as though you’re just coming to after having... »

In his book The Traces of God in a Frequently Hostile World, Diogenes Allen tells the story of Iulia de Beausobre. In the early 1930s Iulia was arrested and tortured in Russia during the reign of Stalin when millions were tortured and died. She lived in solitary confinement for three... »

In The Spirit of Terrorism, Jean Baudrillard points out that they are as willing to die as we are to live.  They are terrorists.  We are the consumer capitalist global order. Baudrillard sees a disturbing manifestation of a trend of consumer culture he first observed in Symbolic Exchange and Death more than thirty years before... »

These days, Brooklyn is the destination where art comes to be born and to die. After all, this is still New York City, the global center for commercial art distribution. But beyond that, Brooklyn is home to the overwhelming majority of studios, ateliers, and actual artists in New York City. Soho and Chelsea obviously... »

where do you move, where ya movin’ from? It’s yourself/It’s yourself Modest Mouse, “Never-Ending Math Equation” Previously we touched upon the visual nature of propaganda; what has happened? People have learned to fight over images, the discussion of identity politics has become a common motif in mainstream media. This happened around the same... »

Let’s be brutally honest, I hate a lot of things, and it’s typically due to some ominous specter of an unnamed evil capitalist swine who smokes 100 dollar bill cigars and kills puppies with toxic lipstick. He also polluted my drinking water, my groundwater, and my local beach. And that’s why I’m infertile. And... »

Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot! Ahh healthy competition. The healthiest kind. We at the avant guardian support both health and competition. Which is why we like all fighting styles. We like Tiger Fist and Flying Crane. We like the guy with the  moobs from Fight Club. We like beast wars (where you pick two animals and... »

If you’ve been to the West Coast then you’ve been here before. I’ve been a vegetarian for many years & this place branded my soul for life! In & Out Burger The best of the best BURGER of all time! Forget McDonalds, BK, Wendys…They got nothing on the yellow arrow and fresh cut french fires! A brand, a logo,... »

The German literary critic Walter Benjamin, as much an avant guardian as anyone yet mentioned in these pages, once saw the revolution in an advertisement for this salt. Bullrich’s. He tells the story in his unfinished Arcades Project, his massive collage of historical ephemera drawn from nineteenth century Parisian street life. Benjamin left his... »

During the Boston massacre, six civilians were killed and six more were injured when British troops, garrisoned in Boston, opened fire on an unruly mob.  Seven of the soldiers accused of murder were acquitted.  Two were found guilty of manslaughter and branded as punishment. When I learned about this as a kid in school I... »