eleven is where Smith's books begin. In Grasshopper Jungle, an Iowa teenager's joyful sexual confusion plays out against an apocalyptic backdrop of man-made super insects that hatch from the bodies of the boys who beat him up. In Smith's new novel, The Alex Crow, a young Syrian refugee finds himself the newly adopted son of a deranged (though well-intentioned) scientist who works on reanimating dead species for the US government to use as living spies. Then the kid goes to summer camp. Smith's books are like that: zany without being whimsical, of-this-world without being limited by its conventions.
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Photo by Rachel Stern - http://www.msrachelstern.com/
Queen Sabrina, Flawless Mother
I quickly discovered two things. First, that Flawless was alive and kicking it on 72nd Street, right off Central Park, where she'd been since the late sixties. And second, that she wended through the last fifty years of American history like a queer Forrest Gump, touching Edie Sedgwick and William Burroughs, Bobby Kennedy and Jackie O., L.A. in the 70s, Paris in the 80s, and New York always and forever. It wasn't she who needed the archive, I realized, but rather, we who needed an archive devoted to her: the poor Jewish kid from "coal dust South Philly" whose legacy was as important as it was invisible.
Read MoreHow the Sausage Gets Laid: 'Pretty Filthy' Is a New Musical About Porn
Unless you have an erotic fixation with jazz hands, few things are less sexy than the average musical comedy. At first blush, this might make a musical about porn sound like a terrible idea, two great tastes that just don't go well together, like semen and Starbucks.
But if your goal is to examine porn as a business first and a fuck fest second, as The Civilians have done in their new musical Pretty Filthy, then the resolute asexuality of the Great White Way is an asset.
Read MoreCensorship Is the Dirty Little Secret of the Art World
Effective censorship is invisible. Its true power lies not in preventing the audience from seeing a certain work, but rather in preventing the audience from seeing the mechanisms of censorship in action. It is the hole that swallows itself.
Read MoreThe Love and Struggle of Producing a Left-Wing Circus
At various points she's been a clown, a juggler, and a freak; nowadays she's the slack-rope-walking, stilt-striding, shit-stirring ringleader of the free, mostly-annual political spectacle known as Circus Amok,
Read MoreSt. Louis Galleries Put On an Art-Show Memorial for Michael Brown
Angry protests flared up across the country last night as a grand jury decided not to indict Ferson cop Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown in August. Rage was the expected—and maybe appropriate—response to the killing of a black teenager, but the resulting photos of burning cars didn't do justice to the emotions the Ferguson community has been feeling for these past few months.
That's one of the reasons Freida L. Wheaton, founder of the Alliance of Black A Galleries in St. Louis, conceived of Hands Up, Don't Shoot: Artists Respond, a multi-site, multi-disciplinary exhibition
Read More'The Babadook' Is a Horror Movie About a Mother Who Hates Her Son
With her debut feature-length film, The Babadook, director Jennifer Kent wants to show horror moves can explore serious themes, not just dismember teenagers and terrify idyllic families who move into haunted houses. Her movie tells the story of a single mother, Amelia, who struggles with the loss of her husband and hates her six-year-old son, Samuel. When they move into a new house, Samuel finds a pop-up book called Mr. Babadook, which contains a monster that goes by the same name. In its attempt to kill the family, Mr. Babadook brings Amelia and Samuel together. It's sweet, in a way.
Read MoreBrony King M.A. Larson Wrote a Novel About 'Pink Princess Culture'
The comedy takes aim at "pink princess culture" while telling a heartfelt story about a girl who enrolls in a boot camp–like school where princesses and knights learn to fight witches and dragons.
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