Notes From Underground

Glen Hirshberg
It's raining, December, well after midnight, and inside Rusty's Surf Ranch, the Russians have stormed the floor again. They come in a torso-wriggling, leg-jiggling wave. They are smoking, laughing, shouting to the music. The girl with the perfect pale skin and streaked red braid circulates through them, strewing laughter and......
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Confessions of a Tender Pervert

Lawrence Ferber
The name Nick Currie, much like his alias of "Momus," draws little more from most Americans than a confused head tilt, clouded eyes or general disinterest. Until now, Momus - who took his appellation from Greek mythology's sarcastic little god who venomously mocked other gods, resulting in his permanent expulsion......
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Macaroni & Cheese

Luis Alfaro
Having just turned 36, I am, of course, looking back. Searching for something from my past that might give me a sign, a meaning for the future. Images of my childhood race by in a sensory love feast. I contemplate asking my parents for one of their Elvis coffee mugs,......
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The Low Life

Kateri Butler
Untitled (1998)If we were queen of the universe - now that's a job we'd like - we would ban sports-utility vehicles, which usually seem to be steered by the most menacing maniacs on the road. However, we started contemplating the virtues of four-wheel drive as we tooled downtown through profoundly......
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Liver

Jerry Stahl
I live for liver. I have to, 'cause I don't have one. (Well, that's not true. I have one. But it lives in Miami and only writes when it needs money. More or less.) But I exaggerate. The thing, if you must know, is that I fucked up my big......

The Battles of Algiers

Mitchell Koss
Last fall, I got on a plane in Paris and took off for Algeria, one of the most terrible places on Earth. Algeria today is defined by senseless violence; grotesquely cruel acts are commonplace. That's why I was going. If, by the logic of contemporary journalism, bad news is important......
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Toon Out

Derek Thomas
Know the difference between the animation festival you saw 10 years ago and the program screening all this week at the World Animation Celebration? This year's show will cost you more money. Animation continues to roll along as steadily as ever, yet much remains the same. The few exceptions -......

Another World

Hazel-Dawn Dumpert
The most prolific film-producing country in the world, India puts out well over 1,000 films annually, a number that includes the nationally distributed, hugely popular Hindustani All-India cinema (nicknamed "Bollywood" for the outlandish formula musicals that have gained minor cult status here), and regional filmmaking produced by and for the......

Bad Girl

Manohla Dargis
Before there was Sundance, before there was sex, lies and videotape, Harvey and Bob and Quentin, there was exploitation cinema - the original independent film. Off-Hollywood in every respect, exploitation movies were born out of the hypocrisy and fear of a studio system that gave up creative freedom in the......
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Creme Brulee

Jonathan Gold
If you had hung out at the pastry station of any swank restaurant in the mid-'80s, you would have seen a hundred little ramekins of custard and one young woman, armed with a blowtorch and goggles, blasting the tops of each of them as if they were Space Invaders, transmuting......