A deep dive into the true nature of Home Alone's Old Man Marley and the possibility that he is the architect of Kevin McCallister's tribulations.
Category: Literature
The Homage is Not Enough: on the Limits of Nostalgia-First Narratives
In the summer of 2016 everyone started telling me that I had to watch a show called Stranger Things. I was reluctant. The reluctance came from the way it was sold: the entire series was one large nostalgia fest for ‘80s Spielberg, Stephen King novels, and Dungeons and Dragons. It’s not that I don’t like …
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Some takes on 2017, before it ends
The end of 2017 is nigh. And with it, the top ten lists, the retrospectives, the predictions. Rather than the Top Books Published in 2017 or the Best Films of the Year or anything like this, here's my list of opinions, ideas, and arguments that I have not already written about in 2017 and would …
9 Reasons to Start Reading Moby-Dick on its 166th Birthday
It's no secret that I'm a pretty big Moby-Dick fan. Or, if it was a secret to you, then this might be the first thing you've read by me. Which is cool, if that's the case (thanks!). Anyway, in honor of Moby-Dick's 166th birthday, here are nine reasons that you finally need to read it. …
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Surely Some Revelation Is At Hand: Classic Poetry and Donald Trump
I cannot recall where the prompt originated, but in either late 2016 or early 2017 I rewrote several classic poems to be about Donald Trump. I rediscovered them recently and could not think of a reason not to share them. I don't know that much more context is needed here. I would recommend reading the …
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No, the Alien Covenant Ending Was Not an Obvious Twist. It Was Dramatic Irony.
It was the best of Alien films, it was the worst of Alien films, it was the sequel to Prometheus, it was the prequel to Alien, it was the story of David, it was the story of Lucifer, it had an awesome ending, it had the worst ending ever -- in short, Alien: Covenant was …
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Sick of Reboots, Sequels, and Extended Universes? Blame Classic Literature
Don't blame Michael Bay or Marvel for all the sequels, reboots, and extended universes. Blame William Shakespeare, Alexandre Dumas, and Mark Twain.
Twelve Ways to Get Hyped for Fargo’s Third Season
The trailers are out for the third season of Fargo and there isn't much more to say about them than "okay then." As in, it looks good. Pretty darn good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbV47R1g_vo But it's not here yet. The third season of the anthology will premier in late April, giving us time to either rewatch the first …
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The World Needs Bad Men: How the Bush Era Caused the Anti-Hero Wave that Gave Rise to Trump
Toward the finale of the 2016 election, Mike Huckabee took to Fox News to give a defense of Donald Trump that I’ve been mulling over in my head ever since. I see Trump as Capt Quint (Robert Shaw) on the boat, Orca, in the movie "Jaws." He's salty, drunk and says incorrect things. He spits …
Stop Misquoting Leonard Cohen and Ernest Hemingway. Start Listening and Reading.
Consider the misquote. It lies in that same realm as citing fake news or reading only the headline. Misquoting is certainly nothing new, but the internet allows a fake quote to be retweeted a thousand times before the truth has even clicked send. I've written about this before, of course. In the summer of 2015, I wrote …
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