Too long; do not read.
The bosses of our mass media — press, radio, film and television — have their aim of taking our minds off disaster. Thus, the distraction they offer demands the antidote of maximum concentration on disaster. (Ernst Fischer) Just a quick one tonight, inspired by Sony Pictures’ firing of Dan Harmon. …
The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor. Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one’s mental equilibrium. It is your window on time’s infinity. Once this …
Nineteen Eighty-Four is not often thought of as a useful text for illumination of the art of criticism, but like all great writers, Orwell contained multitudes of meaning in his writing, leaving great lessons barely concealed for application to whatever subject needed them. At the book’s very beginning, Winston Smith opens …
Donald Dunn, whose old man named him “Duck” when the both of them were sitting around watching cartoons in their modest house in Memphis, was touring Japan with his old friend the Colonel, backing up Eddie Lee Floyd as they’d done so many times before in the past. After last …
The evolution — the mere existence — of comic strip collections is a pretty curious phenomenon. Comic strips are the very definition of disposable pop culture; they are and almost always have been one-shot gag delivery systems designed to be forgotten five seconds after they’re read. The dramatic narrative strips of …
When I was young, like many idealists, I still believed that America was exceptional. I still believe that this country is an exceptional one; there is still no nation that so fiercely enshrines the rights of man in its very foundational document and so vociferously defends them as part of its …
Now that we’re two years removed from its now rather notorious series finale, it seems like a good time to revisit Lost, and to consider the lessons it imparted to its viewers, to its inheritors, and to its medium. The consensus, if such a thing can even be said to …
Some time ago, a friend of mine was discussing the painful direction criticism has taken in the internet age. He suggested, in a bit of phrasing that has struck me as extremely perceptive ever since, that part of the problem is that people no longer approach art with any sense …
I’m glad you asked! My very good friend Cori and I just returned from a week-long trip down into Cajun country, and while I know no one comes here for my travelogues, sit through this one, and I’ll return to the pointless political griping and obscure 10%er comedy in a …
I am a proud father of none, and all my children have been raised with the same care and thoughtfulness with which I monitor my own dietary and alcohol intake. As such, I have some advice for anxious young parents who may be considering some of the more extreme parenting …
So, I’m not black. I’m able to say that I’m not white, either — ironically, through the very mechanism of white privilege. If you’re white and you choose to reject whiteness, you are able to do so only because you’re white. People of color can never deny their color; they …
I am a regular guy who has experienced various life events. And as a regular guy who has experienced various life events, I will on occasion answer letters from my readers seeking advice about similar life events they may be encountering. In a regular way. Dear Regular Guy, I would …
That one finds, in the infant days of the 21st century — indeed, if certain overzealous interpreters of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar are to be credited, the very end of human civilization! — a widespread resistance to well-established facts about human behavior continues to surprise. The world probably isn’t …
Considering the prominence we give it in our society, Americans seem to have a lot of trouble talking about money. All sorts of odd communicational shorthand has arisen around the rather simple concept of money, to the degree that we have found ourselves voluntarily handicapped when discussing the very thing …
Rather than do the predictable, not to mention timely and sensible, thing and write about the season première of Justified, I thought I’d take a different approach. Raylan Givens, the quick-triggered U.S. marshal who is the protagonist of the show, is played by Timothy Olyphant, who also played Seth Bullock, …
