The Reproducibility Trap, Or Why Everything Original and Curated Becomes Re-Heated Crap

Somewhere on I-81 in Virginia, there’s a billboard for Cracker Barrel, because of course there is. If you find yourself on the interstate and there isn’t a Cracker Barrel within 30 miles of you, then start taking pictures of the alien plants and the non-Euclidean geometry, because you’ve slipped into an alternate dimension. Anyway, this… Read More The Reproducibility Trap, Or Why Everything Original and Curated Becomes Re-Heated Crap

20 Jul 2021 Andrew2 Comments

Aldous Huxley is Cool

Will not explain. Just kidding. I first read Brave New World while in college, and it remains both more plausible than 1984 and less terrifying. There are those who say that Brave New World should be more terrifying, precisely because it’s a seductive dystopia. Which, I get. But both of them are prophetic in their… Read More Aldous Huxley is Cool

27 Jun 2021 AndrewLeave a comment

The Rule of 30 in Podcasting

I’ve got a Content Blues Podcast about halfway recorded, and then there’s a Shallow & Pedantic planned to be recorded this weekend. Of the two, the CBP is easier, because I can add to that whenever I want. The work is getting enough recorded to fill out about 30 minutes or so of material. Any… Read More The Rule of 30 in Podcasting

11 Jun 2021 Andrew1 Comment

Maybe I’ll see Nomadland, Maybe I Won’t

I may have made fun of it a while back, but honestly, I don’t hate the concept. I might scope it if it rolls through one of the apps I have. I cannot, however, promise that I will do that. Movies in this era are largely an individualized aesthetic exercise, not a community one. The… Read More Maybe I’ll see Nomadland, Maybe I Won’t

26 Apr 2021 AndrewLeave a comment

Time for the Yearly George R.R. Martin Abuse Post

Every now and again, because I do not learn, I google the phrase “winds of winter”, the title for the next book in the A Song of Ice and Fire series (remember Game of Thrones?). I do this because, nine years ago, I did this for “A Dance With Dragons” and happened to catch a… Read More Time for the Yearly George R.R. Martin Abuse Post

15 Apr 2021 AndrewLeave a comment

Doing Things For a Reason: Miller’s Crossing and the Friend/Enemy Dynamic

Carl Schmidt was a German jurist and political philosopher of the Weimar and Nazi eras. True to the time, his writings contain very strong critique of what he called “the liberal critique of politics.” He phrased it that way because to his mind there was no such thing as true liberal politics, as the essence… Read More Doing Things For a Reason: Miller’s Crossing and the Friend/Enemy Dynamic

30 Mar 202122 Apr 2021 Andrew1 Comment

Let Us Now Tap-Dance on the Grave of the Oscars

I don’t care how dead the horse; I’m gonna beat it more. Observe the nominees for Best Picture: The Father: Someone feeds Anthony Hopkins from his gruel bowl for two hours. Feels ensue. Judas and the Black Messiah: Did you Know that the FBI infiltrated groups hostile to the United States Government? I am shocked,… Read More Let Us Now Tap-Dance on the Grave of the Oscars

25 Mar 2021 Andrew1 Comment

Notes on Ruskin: the Ideal

This will be the last of these, as I’ve finished the book, and am now Observing Nietzsche flop-sweat his way through Why I Am So Wise. I kind of want to smack him, but Ruskin has proven a very informative read. For a 19th Century Englishman, he is both articulate and relatively concise. And he… Read More Notes on Ruskin: the Ideal

21 Jan 2021 AndrewLeave a comment

The Need of Myth

We are used to hearing about Myth as untrue, and also as “a special kind of truth”. I like the religious definition of “a story that tells a sacred truth,” as this cuts to the heart of it. That’s really, one suspects, what Tolkein was getting at with Middle-Earth: telling a story that told deep… Read More The Need of Myth

6 Jan 2021 AndrewLeave a comment

The Three Tiers of Aesthetics

A long essay, but worth your time, which dovetails nicely with other things I’ve written on the subject. Our Cranky Professor lays out three “approaches” to aesthetics/beauty: The Psychological Approach – In which one experiences beauty as an individuated response to the appearance of a thing. A Flower is Beautiful. The Rational Approach – An… Read More The Three Tiers of Aesthetics

29 Dec 2020 Andrew1 Comment