An ongoing exploration of the dark and gritty reboot
It's a book that is real. Over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself repeatedly fielding one particular question: “what’s the deal with this book?” This question has been presented to me in various ways, sometimes in statement form, with iterations including: “You have been so quiet about this. What is it?”"Why does your book …
Continue reading What is Top 10 Games You Can Play In Your Head, By Yourself?
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 …
Continue reading The Homage is Not Enough: on the Limits of Nostalgia-First Narratives
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. …
Continue reading 9 Reasons to Start Reading Moby-Dick on its 166th Birthday
Or, When Did We Start Living in a Fictional Satire? I've compared recent events—and, in particular, this presidential election—to many things: Armageddon, Alien, every Batman story, and almost every '90s action movie. But there is one painful metaphor that I have not explored: the 2016 election appears to have been written by writer and satirist Kurt Vonnegut. I first …
Continue reading What Would Kurt Vonnegut Say About the 2016 Election?
You may have noticed this blog's recent lowered activity. Nothing new since early August, with only a handful of new posts since the beginning of summer. What is the deal, you may ask. Where is your latest needless fan theory? Where is my latest exhaustive Batman dissection? How have you still not reacted to the most …
Continue reading The Short Story I Wrote Inspired by Wes Anderson and Carlos Castaneda
A week ago yesterday - on Wednesday, November 25 - I came across a deal on Amazon: a free digital download of the SD version of the David Foster Wallace biopic The End of the Tour. The deal materialized as part of Black Friday Week, the manic celebration of capitalism that has eclipsed Thanksgiving during …
Continue reading Happy Black Friday 2015 from David Foster Wallace
I haven't had anything to say about trigger warnings until now. I had been leaning on the side of "not necessary" or "too coddling," as most of the media I consume had been framing them in this way. But I'm surprised to say that I think I've had a change of heart, inspired partially by this …
Continue reading Why Are Trigger Warnings Less Accepted Than Spoiler Alerts?
In a previous post, I've argued that no one should call a show good or bad until the end is known. Which means, now that the end is known, we can decide if True Detective's second season was good or bad. People love complaining about how confusing the plot of this season was. And I won't …
Continue reading What Would Faulkner Say About True Detective Season Two?
People love pretending that there is a new novel by Harper Lee, available in stores now. But we all know there isn't. I'm not going to go into all the details of it, because there are enough articles that already do, but basically: it's likely that Harper Lee is being exploited, her supposed new novel is really …
Continue reading Why Harper Lee’s “New Novel” is the Literary Equivalent of Greedo Shooting First
Perhaps you want to see the new David Foster Wallace movie, but you aren't sure why. You know that you like him, or that you might like him, that you are supposed to like him. Or maybe you just like Jason Segal and Jesse Eisenberg. Maybe you just think that the movie looks really good, …
Continue reading The Beginner’s Guide to David Foster Wallace: Five Things to Read, for Free