When I finally got around to reading Richard Rorty’s Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, I experienced the kind of revolutionary bolt from the blue that changes minds and changes worlds. I’d read Rorty before (a few short essays here and there, and his Objectivity, Truth and Relativism), and liked what I’d seen, …
A TAXONOMY OF REALITY PROGRAMMING COMPETITIVE SHOWS: * People compete to win money > People compete to win the right to continue being on television * People compete in a performing talent show > People compete in a performing talent show with or against celebrities * People compete in a …
I don’t usually like going to public appearances by artists. I don’t normally like readings; I don’t normally like director screenings; and I don’t normally like writer Q&As. You’d think that I would; I used to be in the celebrity interview game, after all, and there’s nothing like talking directly …
Peter Greenaway has had such a willy-nilly career over the last few decades that it’s easy to forget how amazingly potent and productive he was at the height of his powers. After years of making hypnotic short films throughout the ’70s, he began with The Falls in 1980 and, until he …
“So, what do you guys sell?” “Traditional science fiction and high fantasy.” “Your average author isn’t 83 years old and nearly dead, then?” “Traditional science fiction and high fantasy.” “Oh. Okay. But, I mean, you don’t just do space operas based on the technical education of someone who was an …
Paul Krugman, who is wrong about things slightly less often than he is right about things, was very wrong about something today. “Unless you were a victim or were close to a victim,” he tweeted, “IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.” With all due respect to the victims of the horrendous mass …
As I have discussed elsewhere on this site, I do not actually believe that Donald Trump, the scrapings from the bottom of a dumpster behind an overpriced steakhouse, actually represents some dire worst-case scenario for America. I don’t even think he varies much from the average Republican, and the party’s …
With Hillary Clinton’s victory in California, and her definitive if a tad presumptive anointment by the press as the Official Democratic Candidate for the 2016 elections, we can move from Stupid Season into Silly Season, and from there to Oh God Why Can’t This Just Be Over season. Few people …
Imagine the boy. He is twelve years old. Like many victims of poverty and racism, he has learned early on that there is very little space for him in the great white world. He knows that those who get out are able to get out because they can either make …
