Cereal is Not a Soup, A Pop Tart is Not a Sandwich, and Die Hard is Not a Christmas Movie, Shut Up, Shut Up, Shut Up

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and I feel as though I’ve spent enough time complaining about “Last Christmas” to people, so it’s time to tackle serious cultural issues. And by “tackle”, I mean “throw into a trash bag, throw the bag in the river, and light the river on fire.” On the… Read More Cereal is Not a Soup, A Pop Tart is Not a Sandwich, and Die Hard is Not a Christmas Movie, Shut Up, Shut Up, Shut Up

2 Dec 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

Important Information About H.P. Lovecraft

H.P. Lovecraft is primarily known as a writer of “weird” horror fiction, but his role in establishing Mythos is perhaps even more significant. Among the Mythoses he is credited with building structure for are True Detective, Reanimator, and My Little Pony. H.P. Lovecraft was born in 1890. His father Winfield Scott Lovecraft, was a man… Read More Important Information About H.P. Lovecraft

22 Nov 202222 Nov 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

Poking the Eye of Argon

The most recent Shallow & Pedantic Podcast was a two-parter on The Eye of Argon, famously the Worst Fantasy Story of All Time. We read the story, and we talked about it. In the first part, we laughed long and loudly at the madness of the story, its logorrheac prose combined with its dearth of… Read More Poking the Eye of Argon

14 Nov 202214 Nov 2022 Andrew1 Comment

Unnamed Journal 32: The Witch in the Woods

Busy weekend of content production. So much, so, in fact, that I’m going to put up two separate posts about it. First, we’ve got the new UJ, which came out on halloween. Of course the usual links are available: Access to all content for $1 a month. Buy individual issues, includes .pdf and .epub And,… Read More Unnamed Journal 32: The Witch in the Woods

5 Nov 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

Matthew Perry is Clearly Doing Great

The clickbait got me. I like to think that I’m above all this noise, but every now and again something so artlessly pathetic crosses my awareness that, like a hungry jackal, I delight in the prospect of tearing it to shreds. And since no one does “artlessly pathetic” quite like Matthew Perry, here we are.… Read More Matthew Perry is Clearly Doing Great

27 Oct 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

Introducing Virtual Book Tours: Drunk Vampire Hunter Reading

This is an idea I’ve had for some time: doing a book tour reading from the comfort of my office and sharing it with YouTube. Here is a dip in the toe from the idea: six minutes from the first Drunk Vampire Hunter story, “Edge of the Graveyard” It’s six minutes because my current web… Read More Introducing Virtual Book Tours: Drunk Vampire Hunter Reading

19 Oct 202227 Oct 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

One’s Self I Sing – Breaking Bad and Freedom

If you watch Breaking Bad on Netflix, you will not notice that the show’s final season was bifurcated. But if you watched it at the time, you had to wait almost an entire year between the first and second half of that season. The first half ends with Hank Schrader discovering that Walter White is… Read More One’s Self I Sing – Breaking Bad and Freedom

14 Oct 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

The Prequel Effect Is Just Fandom Coping

TrueFansTM always find reasons to retain their devotion: I almost never comment on YouTube videos, but I did on this one, because the assertion that the Prequels merit critical rehabilitation, as a consequence of the audience having the Wrong Expectations, needs to be smashed with a hammer. When people are Fans of a thing, they… Read More The Prequel Effect Is Just Fandom Coping

29 Sep 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

On Art and Freedom

I subscribe to 32 Poems, which is put out semi-annually. It contains, as promised, 32 poems per issue. They are thematically curated; the Spring/Summer 2022 issue features “32 Stages of American Hunger”. It’s that sort of thing. In said issue, I read a piece I found provocative: Agnes said that painting is not about ideas… Read More On Art and Freedom

13 Sep 2022 AndrewLeave a comment

Transform and Roll Out

There is nothing that I enjoyed so much in my youth and abandoned so thoroughly in my adulthood as Transformers. I still have a box of toys that I collected well into early adolescence. And then, quite suddenly, I just decided that they no longer mattered. I’ve never seen a single Michael Bay Transformers film.… Read More Transform and Roll Out

6 Sep 2022 AndrewLeave a comment