Best way to take the medicine of philosophy with a spoonful of pop culture

Chicago has the Baffler, and New York has Feed and McSweeney's. But Boston has Hermenaut, a journal devoted to "philosophy and pop culture" that seeks to wrest intellectual life from the stranglehold of academia. To drive the point home, perhaps, Hermenaut's offices are located far away from Cambridge, in Jamaica Plain.

Created by Josh Glenn back in 1992, Hermenaut started out as a feisty little photocopied 'zine. It has grown into a strapping youth of a journal, complete with a Web site and advertising support. (It also topped a recent poll in 'Zine Guide.) The name, by the way, comes from the Greek word for "interpreter," and past editions of the journal featured particular themes that have resonated in popular culture. An issue on Baudelaire, for example, examined the notion of vertigo - yes, Alfred Hitchcock shows up, but so do Mötley Crüe and Evel Knievel. An issue on the sensibility of camp paid homage to Oscar Wilde and also riffed hilariously on Melrose Place, Samuel Beckett, Charlton Heston, Spinoza, and Tiny Tim.

On Hermenaut's Web site you'll find excerpts of past issues (the print edition appears about once every six months), and you may even be lured into the Wicked Pavilion - a chat room that somehow manages to be raucous without descending into raunch.

Check out Hermenaut online at http://www.hermenaut.com.