Pop Culture

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The carnival is God

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Despite remarkable popularity and obsessive fans not seen since the head Deadhead died, Insane Clown Posse manages to attract little attention from music critics or cultural commentators. (For the uninitiated, look upon their wikipedia, ye mighty, and despair.) But despite the amazingly off-putting profanity and sexual imagery of Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope’s horrorcore lyrics, clearly these two rappers have a powerful ability to connect with what I think it’s fair to characterize as an alienated and disaffected fan base. I think the ICP phenomenon is probably a lot more complex than and interesting than it appears, even though cultural elites seem to disdainfully regard it as something unfortunately endemic among the lower classes like the musical version of methamphetamine. (Then again, there’s probably a lot of overlap on the ICP fans and meth users venn diagram.)


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Gleefully faithful

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If you haven’t heard yet, Glee tried to drum up a bit of controversy last week by focusing the episode on religion. The provocative show regularly takes stereotypes to the extreme, and last week’s show was no exception. Nicole Neroulias has a nice roundup–essentially, one of the main characters discovered that his burnt grilled-cheese sandwich looked like Jesus, inspiring the glee club to sing about faith.


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Christianity vs. yoga?

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I’m always surprised at how many people don’t know the relationship of yoga to Hinduism. The Washington Post/Newsweek “On Faith” had a piece on the topic a few months ago. In “The Theft of Yoga,” Aseem Shukla, an associate professor in urologic surgery at the University of Minnesota medical school and co-founder and board member of Hindu American Foundation, wrote:


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Belle and Sebastian ... and God

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Last night we had some friends over for dinner and they raved about the new Belle and Sebastian album “Write About Love.” One of their new songs came on over the transom XM Radio and our guests stopped the conversation to listen and tell us about how fantastic it is. I’ve just listened to the full album — courtesy of NPRMusic.org — and it is really good.


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A tale of two blasphemies

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So we lived through the media circus related to the threat to burn copies of the Koran. I keep thinking back on that with a shudder. A reporter I know was wondering why a few religious groups hadn’t taken to the airwaves to denounce the threat. Because, of course, what the world needed was more people weighing in against the Koran burning. But that was the media environment a few weeks ago — religious and/or political groups sensing an opportunity for favorable coverage by riding the coattails of a media stunt. And reporters having a publication/broadcast-friendly story ripe for the picking.


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Eastwood looks to eternity

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On Saturday, I watched “Dirty Harry” for the first time. This was the beginning of an expedition through Clint Eastwood’s big-bark-and-all-bite police series. It followed through the “Dollar” spaghetti Western series in the spring. And I have to say, there is so, so much more to Eastwood than just “Unforgiven,” which, of course, was great.


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Freedom and intimidation

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The last time Molly Norris was in the news was July. She’s the Seattle cartoonist who responded to censorship of South Park by declaring April 20 to be “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.”


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New Yorker on Christian hipsters

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Let me be clear: I am not a hipster. I’ve had black-rim glasses since junior year of high school (12 years) and a beard for almost as long (off and on). But I am a Christian and I have had Christian hipster friends for the past decade, so Brett McCracken’s new book, “Hipster Christianity,” appeals to me.


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