Anarchists may not like it, but cameras are everywhere

Activists chant on Feldenstraße.
The noise of the demonstration subsided to a dull roar. Occasionally the sharp “Bang!” of a teargas canister leaving a riot gun echoed through the streets of Rudolfsheim, Vienna’s 15th district. I walked down Löhrgasse to Felberstraße, turned left and saw a crowd of “Anti-Faschisten,” maybe 70 or 80 people strong, jogging down the street […]Read This

This Must Be the Cover

Welcome to “Cover Me This,” where the obviously bored writers at the Rail Gaze compare covers of a classic song and hopefully discover that some of them of are pretty good. This week: Conor Fellin takes on “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” by the Talking Heads. Hope you have some cream handy, because […]Read This

Rail Gaze Review: Why Are You OK

Why Are You OK
As perennial Band of Horses fans, Conor Fellin and Will Boogert both knew that they would have strong feelings about the band’s new album “Why Are You OK.” So rather than let one person have all the fun, they thought they would write a dialog about the new album. Conor: So I think for me […]Read This

Contra journalism [1]

It seems to me curious, not to say obscene and thoroughly terrifying, that it could occur to an association of human beings drawn together through need and chance and for profit into a company, an organ of journalism, to pry intimately into the lives of an undefended and appallingly damaged group of human beings, an ignorant and helpless rural family, for the purpose of parading the nakedness, disadvantage and humiliation of these lives before another group of human beings, in the name of science, of “honest journalism” (whatever that paradox may mean), of humanity, of social fearlessness, for money, and for a reputation for crusading and for unbias which, when skillfully enough qualified, is exchangeable at any bank for money … and that these people could be capable of meditating this prospect without the slightest doubt of their qualification to do an “honest” piece of work, and with a conscience better than clear, and in the virtual certitude of almost unanimous public approval.

~ James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

Oedipus at Versailles

Oedipus rejects Polynices
Tragedy has obsessed me—probably to the point of alienating my friends and family—since I took a course on the “philosophical and religious dimensions of Greek tragedy” in college. That course convinced me that the great tragic authors had their fingers on the pulse of something hugely important, something critical but largely forgotten in our time. […]Read This

Touching By Underground Wires

mental illness happy hour
The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast always begins with some variation on the same intro: I’m Paul Gilmartin, and this is the Mental Illness Happy Hour: honesty about all the battles in our heads, from medically diagnosed conditions, past traumas and sexual dysfunction, to everyday compulsive negative thinking. This show is not meant to be […]Read This