It's an unpleasant, abominable idea, submitting something as delicate as culture to the rack of metrification.But here's why it's necessary. There's so much going on "out there" in culture, so many different people creating so many different...

I don't think that V, the science fiction series on ABC, is going make it.  Here's why.Popular culture demands of us that we take treat many things "as read."  We see the protagonist climbing out of bed in the morning.  We cut to a scene that shows...

Are you watching Mad Men, the hit TV show?  Noticed that look of dazed or startled expression that sometimes flits across the Betty Draper's face?  I never see it in real life.As a hardworking anthropologist, I spend a lot of time doing interviews in...

Here's what Michael MacCambridge says about Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur.Neil Postman, once argued--in the title of one of his books--that we are "amusing ourselves to death."  But Mr. Klosterman's relentlessly thoughtful prose makes a case...