AND SO, EARTH CONTINUED TO shake off the irritants that had plagued her since the rise of the Industrial Age…”
— Barbatus the Elder
Category: Etc
Free of labels, which is also a good rule for living
I AM A FANTASY WRITER; that is to say, I fantasize about people reading my writings.”
–Your author, in a truth-pensive mood
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.
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…
Blow ‘Em Out
AS DETAILED IN A PREVIOUS post (c. 2010), every March my sister asks what I would like for my birthday (it’s on the 22d, BTW) and my answer is always the same: “I already have everything I need.” That said,…
The Brotherhood of Blood
SOMETHING ELSE THAT HASN’T SURVIVED into adulthood is the kid-concept of “blood brotherhood.” It works like this: Two boys (did girls ever do this?) make an incision or a pinprick on their thumbs, then rub the wounds together. “Now we…
Metaphoraging Roundup: 2019
AND SO THE CIRCLE TURNS again, one more orbit of the Earth ’round the Sun; meaning it’s time for the media’s year-end lookbacks — a conceit from which The Metaphorager is not immune. As of this writing (two weeks ago),…
Pithyism #15 (Warhol Remix)
IN THE PRESENT, EVERYONE CAN be famous for 15 seconds — which is just long enough to click on the next temporary celebrity.
The greatest mystery is not that we have been flung at random between the profusion of matter and of the stars, but that within this prison we can draw from ourselves images powerful enough to deny our nothingness.”
— Andre Malraux
The only difference between a madman and myself is that I am not mad.”
— Salvador Dali
Ask Me Another
IT’S HARD TO STAND OUT from the billions of people using social media — but you can do it in a small way, at least among friends. I’m speaking as a self-appointed Facebook Questioner, posing queries every Monday through Friday…
ORL Interview: Ivan Stang
INTERVIEWING ONE’S CULTURAL HEROES IS one of the greatest thrills of a career in journalism — even of amateur journalism. Such was the position in which I found myself while working for Obscure Research Labs in the early-to-mid-1990s. It gave…