The economy is tanking, we're at war and the planet is getting hotter. But just how bad will it get? What if you could see the bleak future that you fear might be brought to fruition? Dystopic novels and stories offer the opportunity to explore such nightmares in waking time.

This subgenre of science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction views human nature from completely outside of the exaggerated perfection of the Garden of Eden, while also accounting for current societal ills and postulating on what might occur in the near or distant future if these issues aren't addressed. The utopian ideal of the genesis of humans is destroyed — obliterated, even — and the anti-utopia rises from the tangle and ash.

Often employing a startlingly bleak postmodernist view, the dystopic novel challenges the very core of what defines us, what we're capable of and, often, how we're inextricably linked to the physical world despite what virtually wanders around in our own minds. And where would we be if the postmodern wasn't coupled with the existential, the questioning of a sense of self, identity?

Here are some of my favorites of the subgenre.

1. Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

Female authors address the dystopic universe and the issue of identity much differently than men do. Classic case in point: The anti-sexualization in Margaret Atwood's 1985 book The Handmaid's Tale versus that of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which was published in 1932. In both novels, the men have access to and control of women's bodies and their reproductive rights, but from vastly different perspectives and for equally polar reasons. Brave New World renders women little more than eager sex partners who pose no threat to “trapping” men through their desire for children and nuclear family.

[Warning: Spoilers galore!]

Since March of this year, many Buffy fanatics have been Glory-ing (I couldn't resist) in the season 8 comic book resurrection of Buffy and the Scoobies — both proper and fringe. The last three comics have been devoted to our favorite uber bad girl hero, Faith. And now, three-fourths of the way through the four-issue Faith story arc nihilistically titled "No Future For You," we've got ourselves one heck of a cliffhanger.

Even if Faith's head is not precisely poised on the chopping block, Lady Genevieve Savidge (aka Gigi) is wielding a mean-ass ax and feeling more than a little betrayed. How, oh how, will Faith extricate herself from this pickle? We'll find out when the current Faith story line wraps up in issue No. 9, due out Dec. 5 (with the best. comic. cover. ever.). Until then, let's discuss how she got to this point in the first place, shall we?

Issue No. 6 opened with Faith stationed at the hellmouth in Cleveland — and no, that isn't redundant. Cleveland is actually quite a lovely city, despite how much I hate, loathe and despise their football team. I'm an evolved woman. I can compartmentalize pretty much everything.

Anyway, Faith is tasked with the unenviable nasty cleanup jobs, like staking kiddie vampires, and is entertaining the recriminating voice in her head. Her existence is entirely in the shadows, solitary and stark, mirrored perfectly in how depressingly decrepit her apartment is. No finely appointed Scottish castle teeming with activity for our girl Faith. Her slayer stipend must be paltry.

Is anything more queer (I mean that both ways) than roller derby?

If so, please tell me what it is so that I can replace the cobbled-together poster on the back of the bathroom door. Oh, wait, did I say roller derby? I meant Women's Flat Track Derby Association and its participants. My bad, mea culpa, all apologies. This is no fly-by-night women's sports league: There are teams in 20, count 'em, 2-0 states, from Seattle to New York City and everything in between. Texas seems to have particularly embraced this sport, with six different leagues registered with the WFTD Association and two in Dallas alone. I do have to say that even I find Dallas' Assassination City Roller Derby to be a bit over the top in its marketing scheme. But then I discovered that this is the norm, as most of the WFTDA leagues display a scathing, if not completely wicked, sense of humor and an unabashed appreciation for the absurd.

Last week, I saw Lez Zeppelin at a Pittsburgh club called Diesel.

It was almost too delicious to fathom. Uncharacteristically, I fussed over what to wear. What's the proper thing to wear to experience a cover band resurrecting 30-year-old music? It was quite the conundrum, given my wardrobe. Finally I settled on cargo pants (pockets to hold all my junk) and a black "Faith the Vampire Slayer" T-shirt. My girlfriend Caty looked much cuter in her clam diggers, purple tee and spanking new Tevas. That girl can pull off any look. If we were cities, she'd be Milan and I'd be, well, Pittsburgh.

Lez Zeppelin has neatly carved its own unique niche in a genre that is not only crowded, but insanely crowded. Cover band? Led Zeppelin cover band? Becoming famous in its own right? It's rarer than an echo in a vacuum. But if the glowing press is to be believed, these women not only hold their own, they make the music their own. New York–based Lez Zeppelin consists of Sarah McLellan on vocals, Steph Paynes on guitar, Lisa Brigantino on bass and keyboards, and Helen Destroy on drums.

The massively popular comic Y: The Last Man, written by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated/drawn by Pia Guerra, is getting the big screen treatment. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Carl Ellsworth (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Xena: Warrior Princess) is on board to write the script and D.J. Caruso (Disturbia) has been tapped to direct.

Although the April 16 issue of Time magazine claims that actresses are nearly an endangered species in many of the movies being produced in tinseltown, a cinematic rendering of Y on the horizon means nothing but work for legions of actresses. I mean — and I don't think this is giving anything away, since it happens within the first couple of pages in the very first issue of Y — any mammal with a Y chromosome perishes, except for one dude, Yorick Brown, and his (male) Capuchin monkey, Ampersand. The cast of billions from there on out is nothing but women as far as the eye can see, and then some more. I for one would love to sit in on the casting calls that'll go out for this one! It's all action and a mad dash for control of the world; countless hidden agendas; backstabbing, both literal and figurative; and women sharing their love with other women.

Riding the wave of excitement following their reclaiming of the Algarve Cup in Portugal last March, and with the FIFA Women's World Cup in China a scant two months off, the USA Women's National Soccer Team has been busy honing its skills with a series of friendly (exhibition) matches in preparation for the upcoming tough international competition. With victories over Denmark, Mexico, Canada, China, Brazil and the ever-challenging Norway, the team has its sights set on its next opponent, Japan. The match is slated for 7:00 p.m. on July 28 at Spartan Stadium in San Jose, CA. It will be broadcast live on ussoccer.com's MatchACCESS.

With a very young, but not raw, squad, these athletes are tasked with carrying on the proud tradition of winning that was set forth by the likes of Mia Hamm, Julie Foudy, Michelle Akers and a boatload of others.

I was in Florida visiting the Kennedy Space Center in '99 when our women took their second World Cup. Gosh, I don't know which was more thrilling: witnessing some of the space station being built or following the nonstop soccer coverage. Maybe I'm just being nostalgic, but it seemed like the team became overnight darlings of the media. There were front sports page articles extolling the players' tenacity, ability and winning ways. I think that the winning part was what initially won over the presses. Everybody loves a winner!

One of the young players to keep an eye on is Carli Lloyd, Algarve Cup MVP. Lloyd's come a long way since the disappointment of not making the 2004 Olympic team. She debuted the following year in '05 in a match against Ukraine. Her four-goal-in-four-game performance at the Algarve Cup, including one in the 2-0 championship match against Denmark, highlighted a stellar week for the up-and-coming midfielder.

Dateline: 7/7/07 7:00 p.m.
Where: Cupples Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA
Who: Cleveland Fusion (8-2) versus Pittsburgh Passion (10-0)
What: National Women's Football Association Northern Conference final game

When I initially noticed the plethora of 7's associated with this match-up, I told my girlfriend Caty, "Either mystical forces are aligning themselves for this game or they're not." Then she looked up from whatever she was doing and said, "Thanks for that prognostication, Sylvia Browne." All smarty-pants snark aside, the repeating 7's gone crazy had my spidey sense tingling. I'd never been to a professional women's football game, so to lose the last vestiges of whatever innocence I have left at a conference championship game elevated my excitement level by infinity.

Keep in mind that when I was in high school, we had a single powder puff flag football game every year pitting the seniors against the juniors. I played wide receiver and linebacker both years and loved it. But the thing is, apart from pick-up games and the annual powder puff "classic," to play football on any level for far too long you had to be a guy. I'm happy to say that this is no more! There are two, count 'em, TWO professional women's football leagues: the aforementioned NWFA, whose season ends July 21 in Nashville with their league-wide championship game, aka the Battle of the Best, and the Women's Professional Football League, whose season starts August 18.

The Dead Girl, rated 75% fresh by rottentomatoes.com, appears straightforward enough at first. The title would seem to say it all. But writer/director Karen Moncrieff (Blue Car) veers off the beaten storytelling path and instead rushes headlong into the prickly bramble of human relations. If you could shove troubled people under a microscope, this is pretty much what you would find on the slide. [Warning: Spoilers ahead.]

Told in five interconnected vignettes, the movie begins with "The Stranger." Toni Collette plays Arden, the hangdog caregiver to her foul and vile mother (Piper Laurie, playing up the crazy every bit as much as she did in Carrie). While out on a walk, Arden discovers the mutilated corpse of a young woman, Krista. Arden alerts the police, which serves to earn her nothing more than her mother's ire and venomous tongue.

The TV Guide blog reports that sometime next season, Maura Tierney will be leaving her long stint as nurse-turned-doctor Abby Lockhart on the workhorse medical drama ER.

Although Tierney asked the writers to kill off her character, that doesn't appear likely to happen if she and onscreen mate Goran Visnjic are going to jointly exit the show. But whatever she does, I will be thoroughly charmed — I always am.

by jennifer from pittsburgh

I first heard of Heartless Bastards when my girlfriend put their debut CD on during dinner one evening. The thing is, my girlfriend isn't really all that cutting-edge-new-music-y, so I was a bit shocked that she'd discovered this incredible indie band before I had.

Heartless Bastards, a name I never tire of, consists of founder Erica Wennerstrom on vocals and guitar, Mike Lamping on bass and Kevin Vaughn on drums. Ooooh, gotta love a power trio! Currently they're on tour with Lucinda Williams (who deserves a blog post all her own), and, unfortunately, they're not slated to come to my city. Sigh and woe!

by jennifer from pittsburgh

Tyra Banks and Katharine McPhee are two sassy, talented vixens. So what did Tyra do when she had Katharine on her show a few weeks ago? She did what anyone would do. She felt Katharine up.

The whole encounter just makes me love them both all the more. And I think it sends a positive message about body image, too -- what's not to love?

On her Pop Candy blog, Whitney Matheson recently listed 20 of her favorite cover songs. It brought to mind the weekend my girlfriend and I swilled fine shiraz from a box and tried to figure out what makes a great cover song. We didn't reach a definitive conclusion, but we did agree that the song can't be derivative of the original -- that it has to be "claimed," as it were, by the new artist. Something like that.

While I don't agree with all of Matheson's favorites, I do like her number one choice, "Dear Prudence" by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Here's the video:

 

By the way, John Lennon's original Prudence was Prudence Farrow, Mia Farrow's sister. She was on religious retreat in India and wouldn't otherwise engage with the Beatles when they dropped by.

Last week, Missy Peregrym of Stick It fame joined the cast of Heroes in the last new episode until April 23. Her character is a shape-shifter whose motives seem to be morally sketchy. At least she's not psychotic like Nikki, but that's not saying anything.

It's interesting that all the women with powers (so far, and who haven't been killed off by Sylar) are hot young babes. Meanwhile, Lindeman, the crazed puppetmaster manipulating world destiny, is played by an ancient Malcolm McDowell.

Why the bias? Aren't there any fossilized actresses out there willing to chew up scenery and bend time to their bidding? Cloris Leachman would be perfect.

Wait, no! Joan Collins! Or, better yet, cast them both. You can watch all 18 episodes of Heroes and read the graphic novel at nbc.com.

The Hollywood Reporter has, well, reported that Shirley MacLaine and Olympia Dukakis are reteaming (they previously worked together in Steel Magnolias) for the independent nefarious comedy Poor Things. The Dukakis angle originally piqued my interest because I just loved her sardonic performance in Moonstruck.

But then while researching this piece (yes, I research, honest -- who could know all of this drivel off the top of her head?), I discovered that the film is based on actual events. Two very real elderly women took out life insurance policies on homeless men and then ran them over using a '99 Mercury Sable station wagon.

Sounds hysterical! It's like Death Race 2000 meets Arsenic and Old Lace. I really can't quite decide if this is exciting or if I should shudder in despair over the decline of civilization.

Happy 43rd birthday, Wanda Sykes!

She's done some of the funniest stand-up bits I've ever seen. And she's the best thing on The New Adventures of Old Christine. You know, it's pathological how much I love women who are funny. I blame Carol Burnett for starting me down this path when I was just a wee lass.