By:
No one writes edge-of-your-seat, action-packed, cinematic cliffhangers better than NEAL STEPHENSON (born 1959), and that’s just the talking-heads parts of his novels of ideas. He mashes up solid theoretical discourse (physics, cryptography, philosophy, semiotics) with […]
Read This PostBy:
Title: “This is the enemy.” Publisher: [Washington, D.C.] : U.S. G.P.O. : Distributed by Division of Public Inquiry, Office of War Information Date: 1943. *** Sixth in an occasional series.
Read This PostBy:
In a wire cage in the Pisan sun at the end of the Second World War, the forces of chaos and order clashed for EZRA POUND (1885–1972) more keenly than ever. With the accusation of […]
Read This PostBy:
Monster: “Petite, Red-haired, Observant” — by David Huyck *** Robots and Monsters, a website that swaps custom-designed cartoons and pop art in exchange for a donation to charity, was field-tested in May 2007 by our […]
Read This PostBy:
A cherubic angel heralds the advent of Minute Maid Heart Wise orange juice, which miraculously — note how the bottle glows — resolves the tension between thesis (“It helps lower cholesterol”) and antithesis (“It tastes […]
Read This PostBy:
If the sexualized children’s gardens of white gloves and dildos sharing the same animation cel are old hat to today’s otaku-obsessed hipsters roaming the pop-surrealist galleries, we have auteur animator RALPH BAKSHI (born 1938) to […]
Read This PostBy:
Kindle, iPhone: both are cool/irksome. But which device is the harbinger of Things to Come? Pointing out that “the Kindle is more like a 7-Eleven than a book,” Jason Kottke urges us to think of […]
Read This PostBy:
Unlike his namesake and ancestor, FRANCIS BACON (1909-92) was never granted a knighthood for his services to educated society. Nor should he have been. He deserved a title much loftier and more distinguished: Grand Horrifier […]
Read This PostBy:
Boston Dynamics, creators of the quadrupedal robot “BigDog,” bring you “Petman,” a robot modeled on the gait of Mr. Natural. Unlike Mr. Natural, Petman is stable when pushed. They say that the robot is designed […]
Read This PostBy:
And now, everybody knows it. “I often describe deconstruction as something which happens. It’s not purely linguistic, involving text or books. You can deconstruct gestures, choreography. That’s why I enlarged the concept of text.” Mr. […]
Read This PostBy:
A new Levi’s advertisement uses a wax-cylinder recording of what is believed to be Walt Whitman reciting his own poem. Of course, it’s by no means Whitman’s first trousers ad — O soul in […]
Read This PostBy:
No one has come closer than NESTOR MAKHNO (1888-1934) to establishing that paradox, the anarchist nation. Born in rural poverty in the Ukraine, he got his education as a teenager in prison, where he had […]
Read This PostBy:
The owl and the pussycat went to jail, for something the piggy-wig said. They sat for a while with no hope of a trial, and paper bags over their heads, Till a man with dark […]
Read This PostBy:
Those who question or resist PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973) are overthinking. No need. The man did all the thinking for you. He could have been an immensely appealing sentimental artist, but he forced himself to be […]
Read This Post