Happy Holidays, Oppressed Peoples:
The Modern Pea Pod’s December Mixtape
Look. We here at the Modern Pea Pod like Xmas just as much as the next group of brazenly capitalistic secular humanists. But enough already with this “War on Christmas” bullshit. December is a month teeming with holidays: Advent, Bodhi Day, the Winter Solstice, El Dia de Senora Guadelupe. And then there are the “big two”: the “other” winter holidays, Chanukah and Kwanzaa. The Modern Pea Pod loves these two holidays because we love to party. We don’t like to limit ourselves …

We all have our own holiday traditions. Some people like to gather each year with their families around the Christmas tree and sing carols, while others prefer to sit alone in dark apartments and watch a log burn on New York public access. There are those, as well, who just like to snuggle on the couch with a loved one and watch the countless showings of that old Jimmy Stewart classic. For me, though, the holidays are about one thing and only one thing: I like to see Santa kick …

The Orpheus Obsession is a young adult novel which deals with such interesting subject matter as rock stars, depression, mental illness, the duplicity of sexuality, weird, Francesca Lia Block-esque names, and statuatory rape. Unfortunately, however, few of these issues are dealt with in an entirely satisfactory manner. This is not to say The Orpheus Obsession is not worth reading; lying within this book is a DayGlo underworld which shines and pulses through the poetic details described by its 16-year-old narrator, Anooksha Stargirl. But the problem is, occasionally Stargirl stops being …

The popularity of Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea never really registered with me until recently. I had assumed it was an album that a lot of people had heard, but the latter-day cult phenomenon surrounding it had eluded me. This book, 29th in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series which examines “critically acclaimed and much-loved albums” (think liner notes expanded over a hundred pages), informed me that 50,000 copies of this record have been copped over the last two years – over a third of the album’s total …

Jane Austen and I fell in love during my senior year of high school. It was somewhere in the middle of Pride & Prejudice, actually, when I decided we were going to be together; and while – as in most relationships – that sentiment didn’t hold entirely true, I have still reread Austen’s novel many a time. So, of course I was excited to go see this latest film version.
Unlike most adaptations of a beloved novel, I enjoyed it. Director Joe Wright has successfully made Pride & Prejudice a world …

Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire
Director: Mike Newell
(Warner Brothers)
When it comes to book-to-movie adaptations, I’m no purist. Sure, I like J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books – love them, in fact, to the point where each time I crack a new one open, I won’t rest until all the previous installments have been re-read. But that’s never stopped me from enjoying the film versions, and it certainly didn’t blind me to the merits of Alfonso Cuaron’s stylish, visionary (and therefore controversial, at least to the most zealous of Rowlingites) Harry …

Vivian Sarratt and Edmond Hallas are a married couple. They have an apartment and a cat in New York City. They tour in a station wagon. When I called to speak to Vivian, they were just sitting down to watch a movie together. Vivian Sarratt and Edmond Hallas, a.k.a. Mommy & Daddy, are a married couple and a rock band…but they ain’t exactly Wings either. On the contrary, Mommy & Daddy deal in sexually charged, bass-heavy electro-rock which ought to please fans of Death From Above 1979, the Kills and …

The Hives should be fucking superstars by now. Don’t believe me? Ask them: “Tussles in Brussels is the perfect world in which we were all meant to live,” goes the back of the case, and it’s only the first in a litany of hyperboles to be found within. These Swedes want us to believe they’re pretty hot shit…and frankly, I think they’ve got a case. After all, what makes the Killers’ brand of tight, hooky rock’n’roll any more appealing than these boys’…other than the Hives rock the place, and the …

Brendan Benson
(with SSM)
This is the third time I’ve seen Brendan Benson live – and to be frank, it’s the first time I’ve actually paid attention to him. When I first saw Mr. Benson, it was at Blanche’s 12/03 record release show at the Magic Stick; I didn’t pay attention then because I was trying to figure out what was going on in front of me. The second time was that same month at the Magic Stick’s annual Detroit Sounds & Spirits show, where he was singing Christmas songs with a …

Up Jumped the Devil:
The Modern Pea Pod’s Halloween Mixtape
Christmas…who needs it? From Robert Johnson to Black Sabbath to the Cramps, if the last century of music history has taught us anything, it’s that Halloween rocks a hell of a lot harder. And why shouldn’t it? Halloween is theatrical. All that candy is bad for your health. And God probably hates it. In short, it’s the essence of rock’n’roll, coming around once a year to spook us thoroughly just as the leaves are beginning to fall and the nights are beginning …