SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE: IT IS easier to get rid of everything in one big purge than a few things in a bunch of smaller ones. The time: June 1985. Hopped-up on Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and The Dharma Bums,…
Category: Crit
Examination, interpretation, appreciation.
5 Thoughts: Seminal v. Derivative
1. ONE OF THE CHICKEN-OR-egg challenges of modern media (social and traditional) is their pervasive sense of nonlinear immediacy, by which I mean the everything-at-once flattening of the artistic landscape.
Of Heroes, Waterbeds, and After-Midnight Television
THERE IS A MOVIE THAT follows the struggles inherent in the so-called Hero’s Journey: a high-born child is raised in secret by commoners, and eventually groomed by a wise elder to overcome obstacles and fulfill his destiny by taking his…
Fandom as Cargo Cult
IF WE BUILD IT, THEY will come — again. First, you need to know what a “cargo cult” is: a folk religion among some groups of Melanesian Islanders who believed that they could attract cargo-carrying airplanes by engaging in sympathetic…
5 Thoughts: It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Teacher
1. EVANGELICAL ATHEISTS LIKE TO STATE two reasons why the Torah is irrelevant: 1) It was written in the Bronze Age, and 2) it’s festering with contradictions. 2. Leaving aside the point that many of our species’ current intellectual systems…
The Mask by the Side of the Road
SONOMA IS A SMALL TOWN: small enough to be intimate, but also large enough to have its share of common human misbehaviors. Take the occasional gutter-detritus. The first time I saw an empty bottle dumped near a Sonoma curb by…
Words To Bring Back: “Fervent”
– Definition: adj. Having or displaying a passionate intensity. – Used in a sentence: “Our” cat was a fervent consumer of rats and squirrels. – Why: There are good and bad manifestations of this quality. On the one hand is…
Words To Bring Back:: “Unctuous”
– Definition: adj. (of a person) excessively or ingratiatingly flattering; oily. – Used in a sentence: The current president* (at this writing, anyway: 3/26/20) enjoys and prefers the company of unctuous sycophants. – Why: It’s nice to have words to…
Don’t let the plot get in the way of the story.”
— Anon.
20 Observations on Newspaper Reporting
ALTHOUGH THEY RELY ON THEM, few people say they actually trust the news media. (I call it “Ross’ Paradox.”) Everybody has a story. And many want to share it. Newswriting is a form of reality-creation, wherein readers trust you to…
Words To Bring Back: “Cryptic”
– Definition: adj. Having a meaning that is mysterious or obscure – Used in a sentence: The president’s* speeches are somewhat cryptic to those who don’t share his gestalt, and altogether not for those who do. – Why: What with…
First Graf: Torah
(BE HONEST — YOU MUST HAVE known I’d get around to this one eventually, right?) I make no rigid claims of authenticity, accuracy, or authorship for this work. As far as I’m concerned, this is “simply” a collection of ancient…