An army of animated characters has crawled out of the curious cerebral cortex of one disgruntled writer-turned-illustrator named Matt Groening. This malcontent is responsible for "The Simpsons," one of the most recognized and amusing series in the history of American television. The show revolutioniz
Kurt Vonnegut's curious blend of Science Fiction, black humor, absurdity, and relentless irony may be his way of dealing with an incomprehensible world. His hybridized fiction certainly offers an escapist alternative, one that Vonnegut has elaborated over 30 years of literary production. Faced in rea
Gertrude Stein may challenge Jacqueline Susann as the biggest self-promoter of twentieth-century letters. Stein had a habit of proclaiming herself a "genius" and each of her works a "masterpiece." She was perhaps stretching it a bit, but she did become a pivotal figure in Modernism, influencing a
Art is at once a product of culture and a creator of it. Our attitudes toward artists and artistic creation are currently ambivalent; society at large marginalizes artists but also reveres the few creators that float the multi-billion dollar art market. Critic Suzi Gablik investigates our attitudes t