Giant anthropomorphized robots are pretty popular these days, but they've been a part of our worldwide pop-culture for quite a while. Three decades, in fact. A testament to the enduring appeal of this sci-fi subgenre is currently towering over a Tokyo park as we speak: a full-scale replica of the iconic Gundam is almost complete.

With the facility of micro-blogging service Twitter at their fingertips, musicians are increasingly able to keep their fans updated on their every move. Some artists, however, seem to tweet with equal significance the news of a successful recording session and the tastiness of that Philly cheesesteak they ate when stopping through the City of Brotherly Love. If you're feeling unsatisfied by a bevy of mundane and grammatically unorthodox posts, perhaps this new Twit-lit project will better serve you: Chris Eaton, novelist and frontman of Canadian band Rock Plaza Central, will post Twitter-length stories on the band's account on each day of the group's upcoming tour. 

In typical press-ready fashion, Kanye West teasingly flaunted his tomato-red, self-designed kicks at Paris Fashion Week this past January, months before the shoes would be available for purchase. The time has come, however, for the pricey pairs' release in collaboration with Louis Vuitton.

Over the years, Shepard Fairey's prolific peace-and-justice propaganda have formed an unmistakable design aesthetic, whether used to immortalize hip-hop legends and punk-rock stars, raise awareness on environmental issues, or voice frustration over the long-running war in Iraq. Now, the artist behind the iconic and ubiquitous Obama "HOPE" image, has lent some ink to Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy opposition leader of Myanmar (formerly Burma) who has been under house arrest for 13 years after the country's military government overrode her victory in a 1990 election.

The word "pirate" in the 21st-century is no longer default-associated with just the riding-around-on-boats-and-stealing-things variety (although those guys are still undoubtedly around). Au contraire, the most commonly encountered pirate today is the illegal-downloading-addicted sort that frequent the insanely popular bit-torrent website The Pirate Bay. But one lawsuit and one $7.7 million purchase later, illegal pirating on The Bay will truly be a thing of the past.

Spencer Tweedy is 13 years old and lives in Chicago. He's a pretty ordinary kid: He just finished up 7th grade (he likes school, but hears high school is way better and the girls are less dumb) and had his Bar Mitzvah this spring. At the moment, Spencer is really into photography, hanging out with his friends, reading (he just finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which he loved) and, of course, music. We know all of this because Spencer Tweedy writes about his life in delightfully self-assured adolescent detail on his blog and his Tumblr and his Twitter.

Crude (snake) oil by the barrelful

If the mom-and-pop gas station is dead, Wilco is its funereal knell. The I-75 WilcoHess service plaza of Jackson, Ga. (renamed after the longtime rivals set aside their creative differences and formed a diesel-pumping supergroup), postures itself as an erudite foil to the glossy, prefab, overproduced fueling stations that dot the highways and byways of this nation. My recent stop at this Wilco station exposed the true nature of this façade. Wilco (The Gas Station) runs on a series of clumsily executed pop-philosophy clichés that reflect the sensibilities of a once-great truck-stop empire in its twilight, struggling for relevance in a world it no longer understands.

Known as a legend among graffiti artists, the notorious New York City subway tagger known as Iz the Wiz died June 17 at the age of 50 after a heart attack. Iz, whose real name was Michael Martin, died in Spring Hill, Fla., where he had moved several years ago, according to The New York Times.

A survey conducted by the Country Music Association produced results that exemplify a reality in the industry not often realized: 50 percent of core country music fans do not have the internet at home. And 42 percent of those respondents report they have no desire to change that.

Laughter is the best medicine, they say. And according to Seinfeld's Jason Alexander, it may also be the best tool for building peace. Alexander created a project with OneVoice, a non-profit organization which aims to increase the voices of moderates in Israel and Palestine, called "Imagine: 2018." For the project, he asked high school students in the two nations to imagine what the world would like in 10 years if there was an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement signed in 2008.