Generating worlds, exploring them, losing the thread.
The current Leader of the Free World probably fears anonymity more than most. So he expresses his ‘look at me, I’m a spoiled brat having a tantrum’ shtick in a manner perhaps proportionate to that terror.
Chris Hedges, in his book Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle (2009), quotes the critic William Deresiewitz:
The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of … Read more
In an earlier post, we had a look at Jack Flowers’ tattoos in Theroux’s Saint Jack, set in 1950s Singapore. Now we get a range of early-1990s attitudes to tattoos as described by David Foster Wallace in his novel Infinite Jest, which in parts can safely be described as noir. Very noir, in fact. In this excerpt, we find a broader sample population of tattoo aficionados, a variety of urban flotsam and jetsam conveniently washed up together … Read more
“The quality of a modern movie is inversely related to the quantity of money available to make it.” (Arguably The Revenant is an exception to this rule.)
Whatever. Ellie, Leary‘s second wife, soon extended her original natural law to describe political behaviour. She says that in so-called democracies — roughly speaking, systems of government incorporating elected representatives of the population — certain invariant laws and corollaries apply:
* The effectiveness of a political message is inversely related to the … Read more
The following item has been appearing on countless blogs and Facebook pages around the universe: “Donald Trump has revealed the truth about the Republican Party.”
Trump stands accused of serving up a distillate of all that’s worst about current Republican attitudes and programs. (Many Democrats find this convenient, and really hope his party runs him for President.)
But I don’t believe we can blame Trump. It’s the thing on his head, its roots extending into his cerebral cortex, … Read more
From the man who brought you The Producers, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein–his latest comic blockbuster:
Reality!
Reality keeps changing. Before passing on the latest hard evidence for that proposition, however, let me tell you how I first tumbled to this interesting fact.
Authorities progressively less authoritative. Remember when you were a kid? Back when you believed your parents knew everything, and could always be relied on to give you the straight goods? That was back in a time … Read more
This morning’s Slate carries the following item:
A Constitutional Amendment on Campaign Financing?”
“During his State of the Union last month, President Obama voiced his opposition to a recent Supreme Court decision to overturn campaign finance laws. He’s not the only one who doesn’t agree with the SCOTUS decision. Yesterday, academic and political activist Lawrence Lessig announced a call for a constitutional amendment to overturn it, launching the Web site CallaConvention.org. Lessig writes, “We should begin the long discussion … Read more