Thomas Frank

“The true exemplar of différance is she who, by dint of unflinching critical rigor and unlimited credit, has achieved maximum accessorization of her lifestyle.” —James Hatt, in conversation. Sassy does not want you to think that it is just another version of the ...

Extreme. Gedney Market typed on his Powerbook as the elevated train plunged into the ground just before Division Street on its journey to the Loop. The scrotum-spifflicating gtr of Luftboffer’s frontman/boy-toy Dirk Polnschlaeger strafes the global village with white-hot ...

The adventures of our editorial staff since the last issue. As most of our readers who live in Chicago know by now, three of the Baffler editors (Greg Lane, “Diamonds” Dave Mulcahey, and me) were arrested the night before Columbus Day and held in one of the city’s ...

An Exclusive Baffler Blunting! No one can say the New York Times is out of touch with the young. Like so many other organs of official culture, the Times has lately declared a newfound enthusiasm for all manifestations of The Hip, launching a new “Styles of the Times” ...

For the first time in weeks, Gedney felt in complete control of his image. He let out another twenty yards, and then tied off. His eyes followed the deep grade of the twine as it arced into the azure Carpathian sky, disappearing some two hundred feet below the orange smudge that ...

The following was read at a real-life provocation staged by The Baffler on October 21, 1992 at the Hot House, a Chicago “performance space” and favorite art-lifestyle hangout. Capture the ambience of the moment by shouting this piece angrily as loud as you can and tearing ...

The long-running comics-page saga of Mark Trail is certainly one of the most overlooked theoretical treasures of our age. Aside from the popular Sunday installments of this cartoon chef-d’oeuvre, Mark Trail is rarely followed and, to these critics’ knowledge, has never been ...

We saw this trend approaching a million consumer-miles away. It was inevitable: the Protest Generation comes of age as the Generation of Super-Consumers. —Faith Popcorn, 1991 Thirty-five years ago, Norman Mailer first gave voice to the idea that the “hipster,” the young ...