Swearing and Invective

Latest Articles

Hedonism at its best

Absurdist mirth and wonder in Ubu Roi
In 1888, a 15-year-old French kid and a couple of his buddies wrote a script, modeling its gross and laughable anti-hero on a school teacher whom they had it in for.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | January 27, 2010

2009: The year in Phoenix blog posts

Michael Jackson, meteors, WBCN, and one very angry Obama
Our most popular blog posts from 2009
By PHOENIX STAFF | December 21, 2009

Plain talk

Jesse Sheidlower gives the f-word its due
Jesse Sheidlower, an editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary , an expert in slang, and the author of The F-Word , can't stop talking about fuck.
By JUSTINE ELIAS | September 15, 2009

Knowledge in a flash

Ingenuity
Jake Rolan sat at Starbucks on Thayer Street one day last month, busy on both his laptop and iPhone, seemingly no different from the other students who had carved out an itinerant workspace there, cursing out the wireless network that seemed to fade in and out.
By RICHARD ASINOF | August 12, 2009

Bibio | Ambivalence Avenue

Warp (2009)
Since this new record by Wolverhampton's Stephen James Wilkinson (a/k/a Bibio) has done nothing but delight me, I'm going to honor the sentiments posted to his MySpace blog and spare him the f-word and all variants thereof.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | July 01, 2009

Review: Milton Glaser: To Inform and Delight

Smitten with its subject, with good reason.
In Wendy Keys's extreme hagiography, nobody on earth seems to have a bad word about graphic designer Milton Glaser, either his art or his person.
By GERALD PEARY | June 24, 2009

Between rock and a soft place

Is the Everyday Visuals' likability a liability?
There's a blog post on the Everyday Visuals' Web site titled "Pop is fucking (aka. Everything to all people? / a/k/a. Coldplay is just as bad as Wavves)" that I was tempted to cut, paste, and submit in place of this article.
By BARRY THOMPSON | May 05, 2009

Good dirt

Davy Rothbart of Found magazine reads from Requiem on Saturday night at Precinct in Union Square
"Part of the mystery, when you find a love letter that was torn into bits: was it torn up by the person who received it, or did the person that wrote it tear it up before they even gave it to them?"
By MIKE MILIARD | May 06, 2009

Get shorty

Lady Sovereign hits new heights
"It's not like Jay-Z saw me on the street and discovered me and made me into a superstar! I was doing my thing already."
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | April 30, 2009

Braziliant

'Brazil on Screen 2009,' Mass Art shorts, and spring sales at Mass Art and the SMFA
As if puny, leaf-free trees and a general lack of flowers in late April weren't enough of a message to the post-winter season to hurry its shit up, art schools across Boston are poised to open their annual May fundraisers, all in the name of spring.
By EVAN J. GARZA | April 29, 2009

Wanted: Shitty jobs for shitty times

Big Fat Whale
Ethnic Stereotype Debunker, Royal Taco Eater, and more.
By BRIAN MCFADDEN | April 22, 2009

We gladly accept

Letters to the Boston editor, April 24, 2009
I wanted to point out something to both the editorial staff and theater critic Carolyn Clay regarding her review of A Bronx Tale , starring Chazz Palminteri.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | April 22, 2009

Faulty Conscience | Good Enough for Punk Rock

BPO (2009)
Of the innumerable punk bands who will release their debut full-length this year, Allston's Faulty Conscience will surpass the majority with their aptly titled Good Enough for Punk Rock .
By BARRY THOMPSON | April 14, 2009

Dance Monkey!: Mehran Khaghani

Hates to be called Mommy Face
Every week we put a comic in the hot seat. This week's victim is...
By | April 10, 2009

Another damn study

Timothy Jay, PhD, discusses words his colleagues won't
Some people argue that scholarly inquiry about profanity is pointless, and even laughable.
By CHRIS FARAONE | April 13, 2009

The worst word

How F**K became our top taboo term -- and why we need it to stay that way
Then it happens: you look up at the TV screen and see Bono, the lead singer of U2, step up to the podium to accept a statuette for recording the Best Alternative Music album. "We shall continue to abuse our position," he says, "and fuck up the mainstream."
By TIMOTHY GOWER | April 07, 2009

Unextinct

Dinosaur Jr. will roam the earth forever
The convo is already off to a bumpy start with one Lou Barlow of Dinosaur Jr., phoning in from his Los Angeles residence at 10:30 am PST.
By CHRIS CONTI | March 31, 2009

24. RICK WARREN

PASTOR PRIME
As if having a religious invocation at a political event isn’t intellectually offensive enough, Obama chose this sweaty, goateed buffoon to summon Christ’s light upon the new administration. (What kind of statement is that making, Barack — selecting a religious leader who not only opposes gay marriage, but who also looks like the schleppy owner of Morrie’s Wig Shop in Goodfellas ?) At least he provided one of the lighter moments of the inauguration, when he channeled his inner jazz hands to oddly pronounce the presidential daughters as “Muh-LEEEE-yah” and “SAA-SHHHAAAH.” Don’t worry, Rick — next time there’s an historic first-ever presidential inauguration where the entire universe is watching, we’ll be sure to FedEx that Fun With Phonics pronunciation guide.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

77. Clark Rockefeller

MYSTERY MAGOO
Of course we Bostonians enjoy having the national spotlight splashed upon us, but not when the deer caught in the headlights is a compulsive bullshit artist with Buddy Holly glasses and a German pedigree.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

72. MC Frontalot

BIG NERD
Now that dweebitude is all the rage in mainstream circles (see: the popularity of Marvel comics movies, video-game sales, etc.), all that separates real geeks like nerdcore hip-hop king MC Frontalot from everybody else are his unfortunate accessories. And his shitty rapping.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

97. Toby Young

BRIT TWIT
It’s easy to make this list when you sit next to the sexiest being on this green Earth: Top Chef hostess Padma Lakshmi. Still, Tom Colicchio managed to keep himself off our radar, and so did the dramatically unsexy Ted Allen. But Young is a shoo-in. Besides his canned one-liners and nonsense observations (actual Times headline for a review of Young’s book: “Learning To Succeed as a Loser, on Two Continents”), this baldie looks like a British inbred cousin of James Carville.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

8. Christian Bale

BRIT FUME
To paraphrase his own now infamous expletive-laced tantrum: what the fuck was Bale doing when he launched that embarrassing, inhumane tirade on the Terminator Salvation set? Is this guy professional or not? Shut the fuck up , Bruce! For fuck’s sake, man. Fucking amateur . Somebody should kick his fucking ass . Bale shouldn’t just be sorry. Next time, he should think for one fucking second.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

10. Detroit Auto Executives

GAS BAGS
Girls, it’s sort of like if your prom date showed up in a helicopter, handed you the bill, and then asked you to pay for dinner — every night for the next hundred million years. Sure, it was both hilarious and outrageous that these guys took private jets to Washington where they then requested auto bailout bucks, but then again, if we owned American cars, we wouldn’t take the chance of driving them that far either.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

65. Manny Ramirez

MAJOR LEAGUE ASSHOLE
At last, the mashing man-child recently ended feverish off-season speculation by accepting a paltry two-year, $45 million contract from the Los Angeles Dodgers. With that cash, and the $147 million he’s made since 2001, maybe he can finally afford a style adviser, who could gently let him know that the Jheri-curl/dreads look has been out since before the Tampa Bay Rays became a franchise. One more suggestion: if he still has any cash, he can install a urinal in Dodger Stadium’s left field.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

56. Jonah Goldberg

TALKING HEAD CHEESE
This half-stepping conservative knee jerk and author of Liberal Fascism has a face for radio — so why the hell do they keep putting him on TV?
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

36. Raffaello Follieri

CARDINAL SINNER
Anne Hathaway’s greaseball ex-boyfriend, who has a face like a Picasso painting, may end up bunking next to Bernie Madoff for money laundering and misappropriating millions in fraudulent investments. Seems to us a guy with a name that slick — and a knack for getting his picture taken with the Pope — should be actually getting away with shit.
By Boston Phoenix Staff | March 25, 2009

Rogue wave

The allure of the music industry may be long gone, but SXSW can still attract the underground to its edges
These days, younger, wiser bands simply don't bat their eyelashes at the majors like they used to.
By MICHAEL BRODEUR | March 25, 2009

Bomb the Music Industry! | Scrambles

Quote Unquote/Asian Man (2009)
To Leave or Die in Long Island (2005) and Goodbye Cool World (2006) cemented this outfit's legacy as a band-type thing too self-consciously goofy to be taken seriously.
By BARRY THOMPSON | March 23, 2009

Review: Britney Spears at the Garden

Britney Spears' Circus Maximus at the Garden, March 16, 2009
"Oh my God, this is going to be so fucking crazy!" screams a teenage girl behind me.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | March 19, 2009

From your biggest fan

An open letter to Canibus (sans Dido interludes)
I e-mailed but you're still not calling. (I left my cell, my office, and my home number at the bottom.) You must not have got 'em; there must have been a problem with your servers or something.
By CHRIS FARAONE | March 19, 2009