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THESE TIMES/
THIS PLACE
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THIS PLACE IS NOT
AS IT SEEMS
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section 2
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This PopMatters Special Feature Section edited by Karen Zarker
PopMatters Columns Editor
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In the Desert, You Can't Remember Your Name
by Rob Horning
Las Vegas displays itself in a very calculated and contrived manner: to mark the point where over-the-top hits rock bottom; where perfect naiveté becomes indistinguishable from perfect cynicism. Every gleaming hotel tower, every simulacrum of an ancient wonder, was built not through some noble human aspiration for splendor or permanence, but for carefully harvesting the stupidity and cupidity of others. [Read Essay]
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Spawning Ground
by David Antrobus
In this ancient place of giant ferns and cedars, it seems the dead outnumber the living; the living fall away too quietly, too easily, taken away by stealth. There is tremendous natural beauty here, but its hold is tenuous, like moss clinging to rotting bark that will ultimately break and sink into the forest floor. [Read Essay]
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The Silent Future
by Mike Ward
But for the faint hum of traffic, the tinkling water in a fountain, and one's own, softly spoken conversation, the office parks of Northern Virginia are eerily quiet. Sci-fi movies of the '70s predicted the future would be this way: sterile and foreboding. Here, the modern worker goes home to a planned suburb of wide, empty sidewalks, landscaping devoid of birdsong, the soft blue glow of television sets pulsing through silent windows. [Read Essay]
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Ghost World
by Elbert Ventura
The irony of Washington, DC, repository of the nation's nostalgia, is that it is has no sense of its own past. For those who come, living here is just something that you have to do to get to where you eventually want to go. No one who stays is anyone of real power. [Read Essay]
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Freezer Burn in Saskatchewan
by Adrien Begrand
You know the phrase, "when hell freezes over"? Well, Saskatchewan is hot and cold as hell, for sure. It has super-heated feelings forged from the more frigid aspects of its history, but it also has its share of that bright, blue, heaven-like sky from which all manner of things may descend; be they ravishing insects — or feelings of optimism. [Read Essay]
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