“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in…
Category: Crit
Examination, interpretation, appreciation.
Muse Ich
SOME SONGS JUST SOUND BEST on a transistor radio. (You know who you are.)
Question of Essence
DO YOU PRACTICE AN ART form, or a life form?
David Feldman, Post-Modern Comic Genius
PAY ATTENTION, CLASS: TODAY WE learn from David Feldman, American, how to correctly structure a portable visual joke (in this case, a bumpersticker) for maximum satiric and comic effect. First point: Understand the medium. The English-speaking American eye travels a…
Apropos Punditry
DOESN’T ALL THAT JERKING MAKE the knees hurt?
Something With Which All Pundits Seem To Agree, Post- “Arizona Tragedy”
“WE ALL NEED LESS VITRIOL from those other guys.”
Sorting Debbie
IN THE WAKE OF SINGER and prolific synagogue-music innovator Debbie Friedman, I find myself mourning her death but ambivalent about her legacy. The mourning: If you worship at most “progressive” (i.e., non-Orthodox) North American synagogues, you’re familiar with her work…
Just Off The Block of My Head
IF THERE IS ANYTHING SCARIER than writer’s block, I hope I never discover it. For me, writer’s block is more than just an inability to string together something pretty or useful. It’s like losing half or more of my personality.…
Vicaritor Rex (noun)
ONE WHO OR THAT WHICH provides a satisfying and compelling sense of the little guy “getting his own back.” (See: David, Goliath and; Slater, Steven; Man, Tank.)
Sound Advice
LIKE MANY LATE 20th/EARLY 21st CENTURY Westerners, I have seen a lot of music in my day. This makes me prone to “ohrwurms,” as the the Germans call them — “earworms” — those annoying songs in your head that JUST…
2010 Roundup: Top Posts
IT’S DE RIGUEUR FOR NEWS outlets to wrap up the year with a look at their Big Stories, and we at Metaphorager.Net are no exception despite that we’re only a “news outlet” in the sense of “what’s news to me.”…
Pithyism #24
A GOOD DAY IS ONE in which the artist heaves a stone and the ripples wash up smiles and murmurs. (Or, put another way, “Blessed be the One who makes the makers.” I don’t know that one needs to “believe”…