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Baffler Archives: Odds and Ends

Columns

Pistols for Two: Jay Rosen vs Thomas Frank
January 15, 2013
Jay Rosen Writes: “At a time when the normal condition of the citizen is a state of anxiety, euphoria spreads over the culture like the broad smile of an idiot.” The critic Robert Warshow wrote that in 1948. Fifty years later, something similar appears to be on Thomas ...

Grating to the Oldies
January 15, 2013
At Ed Debevic’s we’re proud to say that we were one of the first restaurants to incorporate our special brand of entertainment into the dining experience. Since we opened our first restaurant in Phoenix, Arizona in 1984, many other restaurants have come along to offer ...

Goblins’ List
January 13, 2013
The following list is a menu of proposed and completed projects that The Goblins, a masked musical group, provides to record labels interested in working with them. The superiority of this method, as opposed to the traditional “demo tape,” should be clear. The Goblins ...

Extreme Spreadsheet, Dude!
January 13, 2013
Excerpts from the prospectus for an initial public stock offering for VANS, a shoe and apparel company that caters to alienated suburban youth. As a result of [its] reputation, the Company has developed a strong brand image which the Company believes represents the ...

sucky.investment.com
January 13, 2013
Highlights from the prospectus for Wired’s (first, failed) IPO, filed May 30, 1996. Brought from the SEC’s website to Baffler readers courtesy of Doug Henwood. THE COMPANY Wired Ventures, Inc. (the “Company”) is a new kind of global, diversified media company engaged ...

Crazy Times Call for Repressive Organizations
January 13, 2013
Excerpts from Laborwatch, a monthly newsletter published by the Barens-Tate Consulting Group in Omaha, Nebraska: Read the Signs: Unusual Activity Portends Union Organizing Union organizing efforts come in all shapes, sizes—and degrees of stealth. Because unions vary ...

Strike City, Miss.
January 12, 2013
It’s not that far from Midnight, Mississippi or Panther Burn. All it’s got is a street sign that says Strike City Road. You would miss it if you weren’t headed to a wedding deep in the Delta and knew to turn off Highway 82 on a road flanked by bonfires. You ...

Music Lesson
January 10, 2013
On a Wednesday evening in June, 1935, a new radio series, “Robert Neal Presents Albie Snow and his Orchestra,” made its debut on the CBS network. Featuring a small jazz band combined with a classical woodwind quintet—flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and French horn—the ...

Semiotics Mailbag
September 23, 2012
  Dear Théophile: I went to the trade show with one of each of Magnus Bredenbek’s 41 classic types of business leader: a Facilitor, a Blamer, a Denier, an Opportunist, a Passive-Prevaricator, an Aggressive-Prevaricator, a Terroristic-Truculent, a Terroristic ...