DeVotchka: Music to Swoon To
After a decade of playing Eastern European music, mariachi and ballads, the Grammy-nominated Denver quartet is signed and touring the world.
—By Gary Moskowitz
Music Review: Carlene Carter
Anybody who's not touched by reflective moments like "Bring Love" or the mournful-yet-uplifting title track must be a cold-hearted creature indeed.
—By Jon Young
Yo La Tengo: "It's Our Life"
Members of Yo La Tengo drop free-throw metaphors and debate whether or not mixing hip-hop and jazz on bazookies is a good idea.
—By Gary Moskowitz
Music Dispatch: Even Disco is Political
Bay Area DJ and Wiretap managing editor Tomas Palermo gives the low-down on Seattle's 2008 Pop Conference.
—By Gary Moskowitz
Dave Wakeling: An Englishman in Southern California
The politically outspoken English Beat front man is playing 140 shows a year and getting more radio play than he did in the 80s.
—By Gary Moskowitz
Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden?
Morgan Spurlock's documentary is not the smoothest war on terror documentary, but it avoids preaching to the choir.
—By James Rocchi
Love Bites: An Interview With Toby Barlow
The author of the future cult novel Sharp Teeth talks about his tale of werewolves in Los Angeles.
—By Tony DuShane
Pistolera: Party at the Border
Sandra Lilia Velasquez dishes on San Diego slow pokes, fierce New Yorkers, and how to make it without a record label.
—By Gary Moskowitz
Lynn Hershman Leeson: Wag the Free Speech
The docudrama Strange Culture combines Tilda Swinton, genetically modified foods, death, bacteria, and censorship. MoJo sits down with the film's creator.
—By Joyce Tang
Malik Yusef: Word on the Street
Chicago's premier spoken-word artist riffs on music, poverty, and the problem with commercial hip-hop.
—By Andre Sternberg
The Real-Life Matrix
Think you're not part of the military-industrial complex? Think again. An interview with The Complex author Nick Turse.
—By Casey Miner
The Apex of Slavery
Benjamin Skinner went undercover in Istanbul to negotiate the purchase of slaves from human traffickers. What he found was a thriving trade in human misery.
—By Caroline E. Winter
For the Press, No Iraq Introspection
On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, the media reexamined just about everything—except for themselves.
—By Greg Mitchell
Lewis Black Is No Judge Judy
What doesn’t piss off comedian Lewis Black? March Madness, that guy in A Thousand Clowns, and not much else.
—By Nick Baumann
Book Review: The Man Who Pushed America to War
Who is Ahmad Chalabi, really? A scheming manipulator, a corrupt businessman, a political visionary, or all of the above?
—By Bruce Falconer
Hollywood's Eco Trip
Made-for-TV environmentalism recycles green messages for Prime Time.
—By Dave Gilson
Book Review: Trespass: Living at the Edge of the Promised Land
Amy Irvine struggles to find her place among the cowboys and Mormons of Utah's red-rock country.
—By Julia Whitty
Book Review: The Ten-Cent Plague
Back before Spider-Man and the X-Men, comic books were the villains.
—By Daniel Raeburn
Film Review: Chicago 10
What do slick CGI and Rage Against the Machine have to do with 1968?
—By Gary Moskowitz
Book review: Dog Man
A tale of Japan's lightning-speed evolution from a bellicose society to an industrialized superpower of salarymen and city dwellers.
—By Britt Peterson
Go Sell It on the Mountain
On Mt. Everest, climbers have more to worry about than the weather.
—By Elizabeth Gettelman
The Real Adrian Tomine
The Optic Nerve cartoonist talks about his new graphic novel, his nosy fans, and the joys of not having to draw posters for horrible bands.
—By Kiera Butler
Mother Jones' 2007 Media Picks
A few of our favorite books and films from the past year.
SugarDaddy.com: Old Dogs, New Tricks
All I had to do to gain access to the "meeting grounds of the rich and beautiful" was enter a user name, vitals, marital status, and my financial expectations.
—By Nicole McClelland
Stephin Merritt: The Silent Type
The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt talks about the "indie-rock ghetto" and his new album—but stays mum about Sasha Frere-Jones and Mamma Mia.
—By Kiera Butler
Thirty Days in Iran's Worst Prison
Zarah Ghahramani, an Iranian student, was sent to Evin prison for exposing her head in public in 2001. Seven years later, she talks about what happened next.
—By Kiera Butler
Never Mind the Mullahs
Now living in self-imposed exile in Paris, 38-year-old cartoonist Marjane Satrapi talks with Mother Jones about the animated version of her memoir, Persepolis.
—By Vivienne Walt
Shooting War: Journalism for Cool Dudes
A new graphic novel tells the story of a young citizen journalist who becomes a terrorist leader's pawn—and Dan Rather's best bud—while covering war-torn Iraq in 2011.
—By Gary Moskowitz
Hollywood and the CIA: The Spook Stays in the Picture
Charlie Wilson's War is only the latest in a string of movies brought to you by CIA insider Milt Bearden.
—By Laura Rozen
The McClellan Street Project
As teenagers growing up in Ft. Wayne, Indiana in the early '70s, twins Peter and David Turnley embarked on a project to document the working class neighborhood of McClellan Street.
—By Mark Murrmann
Fight the Power: A New Movement for Civil Rights
Can hip-hop get past the thug life and back to its radical roots?
—By Jeff Chang
Waiting for Godot in New Orleans
Samuel Beckett's most famous play in the most appropriate of settings: the still-destroyed neighborhoods of Gentilly and the Lower Ninth Ward. A story and photo essay.
—By Nick Baumann
Schlock and Awwww: Commercializing Altruism
Every week, Ty Pennington brings the American Dream to a deserving family. What a freakin' jerk.
—By Jon Mooallem
Sundance Still Embracing A Misnomer
Look, I liked Sneakers as much as the next guy, but when was the last time Redford shattered any contemporary American idols?
—By Justin Elliott
Prepare for the Shopocalypse
A timely documentary chronicles one man's zany quest to spread a simple message: "Stop Shopping."
—By Gary Moskowitz
Dance Dance Revolution
Boots Riley talks politics, and vents about how the biz shortchanges idiosyncratic bands like the Coup.
—By Gary Moskowitz
Americana's Sad Sweetheart
Patty Griffin talks about her melancholy music's surprising ties to the Dixie Chicks, Public Enemy, Mary Poppins, and Jessica Simpson.
—By Peter Meredith
Quarterlife: Angst 2.0
Twentysomethings share house, drama, and shenanigans on the new web series that double-bills itself as a web community for "artists, thinkers and doers." Ewww.
—By Kiera Butler
Dispatches From L.A.'s Punk Scene
Los Angeles was a haven for punk rock in the early 80s. The city is at it again.
—By Gary Moskowitz
