Category Archives: Uncategorized

One of these days the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare will probably win the Nobel Prize– If you read my review in the LA Review of Books of his just-translated 1970s bildungsroman that is partially about Boris Pasternak’s winning the Nobel … Continue reading →

Please check out an article of mine in the June issue of the Brooklyn Rail. It discusses Rocky the Musical which is currently on Broadway, comparing this recent incarnation with the 1976 blockbuster film and its specific historical context. 

Hope you can take some time to read my review of this post-apocalyptic trilogy! http://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/02/after-the-flood/

Perhaps this potential bifurcation of art creation is theorized elsewhere with more nuance, but I have been struck recently by a division in the world of artistic mimesis. Simply, some art is created and as it is created becomes the … Continue reading →

Disney’s film Haunted Mansion shares with Pirates of the Caribbean the common trait that both films were released in 2003 and are both filmic representations of Disneyland theme-park rides. It was a clever conceit by the studio to give new life … Continue reading →

This past week saw the two-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. I can remember exactly where I was two years ago, which was teleworking from home on a Saturday in a bid to make a few extra bucks for my … Continue reading →

The first thing you should notice on watching Miley Cyrus’ new video “Wrecking Ball” isn’t the “sexual” imagery deployed; the testicular wrecking ball she swings from naked, the sledge hammer she fellates–these images are worthy of a middling Maxim Magazine … Continue reading →

So ignorant are most landsmen of some of the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous … Continue reading →