The A.V. Club - Arts & Culture

Arts & Culture: Newswire: The Onion and The A.V. Club expand empire, head to Fort Collins, Ann Arbor, and Toronto

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 13:30:00 -0500

We’re happy to announce that The A.V. Club’s online empire has grown to include two new cities, including our first step toward international pop-culture domination. The A.V. Club Ann Arbor and The A.V. Club Toronto are now live at their respective sites, keeping readers up to date on the latest stories and events you need to know about. Both sites are also live on Facebook (Ann Arbor, Toronto) and you can follow them on Twitter as well at @AVClubAnnArbor and @AVClubToronto. Both Ann Arbor and Toronto have also become part of our print empire, as ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: Changes coming to the A.V. Club commenting system

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 17:00:00 -0500

When we first introduced a commenting system to The A.V. Club we didn’t know what to expect. Would our readers even want to comment on our articles? Turns out you did, and one of the most gratifying parts of working at The A.V. Club these last few years has been watching the comments section grow into a vibrant, thriving community of pop-culture obsessives. We want that growth to continue, which is why we’ll be introducing some changes to the A.V. Club comments beginning at midnight on August 23. What kind of changes? Glad you asked ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: A.V. Club Job Alert: City Editor in Toronto

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 14:15:00 -0500

It’s been a long time coming, but The A.V. Club (as well as sister publication The Onion) is finally heading north of the border, the next stop on the way to world domination. After they’ve given us so much—The Kids In The Hall, the DeGrassi series, more great actors (John Candy!) and musicians (Broken Social Scene!) than we can shake a hockey stick at—we’re giving back and opening up a bureau in Toronto. But before we get to courting Caitlin Ryan with Rush mixtapes, we need to fill an essential job opening. Editors in ...

Arts & Culture: Great Job, Internet!: Tom Hanks, other famous people join movement to bring The Onion a Pulitzer

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 16:40:00 -0500

One of the toughest early lessons humans learn—besides the fragility of life via the death of countless goldfish—is that life isn't fair. But sometimes we get so fed up about life's unfairness that we choose to fight back, to fight for the recognition that we or others deserve. That's the driving force behind Americans for Fairness in Awarding Journalism Prizes. They've decided it's high time that the Pulitzer Board recognize the journalistic genius that goes on at The Onion with its own Pulitzer. (Yes, AFAJP was started by The Onion, and yes, The ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: The A.V. Club job alert: City Editor and Account Executive in Ann Arbor

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:00:00 -0500

Ah, Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of the University of Michigan and former home of Ken Burns, Andrew W.K., and Bob Seger. And very soon, a new home to The A.V. Club and its sister publication, The Onion. As such, The A.V. Club is looking to fill two positions in Ann Arbor. City Editor Editors in the Ann Arbor area, take heed: The A.V. Club is coming to town and in the market for a City Editor. Think you have what it takes? Here’s what you need to know: The A.V. Club is looking for ...

Arts & Culture: Great Job, Internet!: Princess Beatrice's hat becomes the royal wedding's other breakout Internet star

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:20:00 -0500

Readers already know how we feel about today's royal wedding. But besides inspiring countless silly animated gifs and the adorable photobomb, a single piece of wedding fashion is now captivating wedding watchers and avoiders alike. Princess Beatrice (cousin to Princes Harry and William), who has something of a history with silly hats, pulled off a conservative Lady Gaga look with this strange headgear. And now the Internet has done what the Internet does best: there's a Facebook page dedicated to the hat and it's fast becoming a Photoshop meme on this Tumblr and Gawker. And if the ...

Arts & Culture: AVQ&A: Art in obsolete formats

Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500

Welcome back to AVQ&A, where we throw out a question for discussion among the staff and readers. Consider this a prompt to compare notes on your interface with pop culture, to reveal your embarrassing tastes and experiences, and to ponder how our diverse lives all led us to convene here together. Got a question you’d like us and the readers to answer? E-mail us at avcqa@theonion.com. What pop culture are you hanging onto even though it’s in an essentially obsolete format? Tasha Robinson I recently cleaned out a closet and realized I still had 50 ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: U.S. House votes to cut off funding to communist heathens at NPR

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:25:00 -0500

Not content to simply take important resources away from poor people and women, House Republicans have now targeted Ira Glass and Car Talk, voting today 228-192 to cut off federal funding to National Public Radio. While most Republicans used the excuse of “They don’t actually need the money,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), took the bias route, saying, “why should we allow taxpayer dollars to be used to advocate one ideology?” The bill would prohibit local affiliates from using any of the $60 million in federal funds (about 2 percent of NPR’s annual budget) “to pay for ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: A.V. Club job alert: City Editor in Philadelphia

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 13:10:00 -0600

Editors in the greater Philadelphia area, take heed: The A.V. Club is coming to Philadelphia and in the market for a City Editor. Think you have what it takes? Here’s what you need to know: The A.V. Club is looking for a hungry city editor. The full-time position entails supervising all of our local content, including the weekly paper and local website. Job responsibilities include writing feature articles, event picks, and more for print and web; supervising a staff of freelancers and interns; maintaining the local website’s social media branches (Twitter, Facebook, etc.); and being the ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: Happy New Year from The A.V. Club

Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:10:00 -0600

We'll be back to full operational strength on Monday. We're looking forward to sharing the pop-culture ups and downs of 2011 with you.

Arts & Culture: Newswire: A.V. Club housekeeping notes: Everything old is new again

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:00:00 -0500

You may notice some changes to The A.V. Club homepage in the coming days, so we wanted to alert you to a couple of columns that will undergo a bit of a transformation. Rather than the weekly smorgasbord of Internet scuttlebutt that is Trending Topics, we’ll now be doling out web goodness in daily, bite-sized portions under the title Great Job, Internet! Look for viral videos, must-click links, and other virtual bits and bobs under its own heading on The A.V. Club homepage. Similarly, monthly humor roundup Laugh Track has moved to the Blog section with a ...

Arts & Culture: The A.V. Club Blog: Death by sexy: a middle-aged man in an Eat Pray Love promotional T-shirt auditions to be an American Apparel model

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:56:00 -0500

Like many people, I am unhealthily fascinated by the advertising of American Apparel, the hip clothing chain best known for its desiccated-looking models and the frenzied, constantly, vaguely simian masturbation of founder/charismatic Dov Charney. It’s hard not to be moved by the print ad’s haunting images of desperation and sadness. Who were these emaciated young people with their gaunt flesh squeezed into gold lamé leggings, their dead eyes pleading for mercy and compassion? Why did a major chain choose advertising redolent of child pornography from the '70s? Were these runaways all right? Had Charney forced them into ...

Arts & Culture: The A.V. Club Blog: Great Job, Internet!: Have you considered putting Lysol in your vagina?

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:54:00 -0500

Oral Adams of I Can Has Internets collected 25 mind-blowingly sexist print advertisements from the good ol' days—you know, back when men were men, women were there to cook and clean, and sicko homosexuals knew their goddamn place. This post first went up at the end of May, but sexism is timeless. "Often a wife fails to realize that doubts due to one intimate neglect shut her out from happy married love" proclaims an ad for Lysol douches. It recommends women use "concentrated germ killer" Lysol in their hoo-hahs to maintain "feminine daintiness" and "protect your married happiness... keep ...

Arts & Culture: Hater: Shock Artists Today Have It So Easy

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:15:00 -0500

Being a shock artist used to be tough. You had to collect all your fingernail clippings for twenty years and then fashion them into a mosaic of Gorbachev raping an owl; or you had to develop a plastinization process to preserve human tissue, convince the Chinese government to give you the bodies of prisoners, and then painstakingly bend and shape the bodies into weird poses. If you were feeling lazy, you used giraffe dung and old baby teeth to make a portrait of Mother Teresa—but even that took some effort. (There was the drive to the wildlife park, convincing ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: News from A.V. Club HQ

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 14:57:00 -0600

Some rumors have been swirling around about us online, so we wanted to step out of our fortified subterranean bunker to clear them up. First, the bad news: Starting next week, we will mostly excise local content from the New York edition of the paper. The Onion and the national part of The A.V. Club will remain in print, but our local content will be limited to event previews. We will also retire newyork.avclub.com (and its Twitter feed) Wednesday night. It's a big and unfortunate loss for us editorially—City Editor Andy Battaglia and his assistant ...

Arts & Culture: Newswire: RIP fashion designer Alexander McQueen

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 11:06:00 -0600

Fashion designer Alexander McQueen was found dead this morning at his home in London, just hours before he was scheduled to show his Fall 2010 collection at New York Fashion Week. The UK’s Daily Mail is reporting his death as suicide by hanging, and notes that it comes just days after the death of McQueen’s mother. The influential designer (born Lee Alexander McQueen) was 40 years old. McQueen dropped out of school at age 16 to pursue fashion, working his way through a variety of apprenticeships. After completing fashion school, he launched his own line and quickly made ...

Arts & Culture: The A.V. Club Blog: Here we stand, all together now, at the end of the media age

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:00:00 -0600

The only thing more 2009 than a Media Alert from a big PR firm about a "flash mob" to happen at Universal City Walk in support of a new Janet Jackson CD is a follow-up Correction Media Alert stating that the time for the "flash mob" will be 6 p.m., not 4 p.m. as previously stated. There you have it. "MEDIA OPPS," the release goes on to state, "WILL INCLUDE B-ROLL OF DANCERS SURPRISING THE PUBLIC WITH SPONTANEOUS FLASH MOB PERFORMANCE SET TO A MEDLEY OF JACKSON HITS: 'IF,' 'RHYTHM NATION,' 'MISS YOU MUCH,' 'NASTY.'” Take some time ...