Tag: economics

Critic's Notebook, film, TVLeave a comment

Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part II

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Unpopularity as Popularity: or How to be a hipster. “Every aspect of hipster culture amounts to little more than an elaborate pissing contest.  …  Hipsters ignore rules because they think it will make them look like they don’t care. There is no end result, just a continuous cycle of mediocre indie rock and scruffy looking dudes. By basing their actions on avoiding the mainstream, they are in fact guided by the mainstream.” – “Cracked Topics: Hipster”, Cracked.com You’re not cool enough.  The bands you like aren’t unpopular enough. Hipsters, the annoying quasi-subculture, has its own uses and abuses of unpopularity. … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part II

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Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part I

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“In place of a hermeneutrics we need an erotics of art.” – “Against Interpretation” [1964], Susan Sontag Challenges and Non-Responses The job of the critic is, by turns, tastemaker, evangelist, and champion.  The best critics harness the powers of intellection and enthusiasm to inform his or her readership on a work’s merits.  If a work receives more merits than demerits, than, in a roughly mathematical fashion, the creator obtains a “good review.”  This reviewer finds works with “mixed reviews” or polarizing reactions (see Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones) most attractive, since “mixed reviews” are not sure things.  A tiny element … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: Unpopular Causes, Part I

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books, Critical Appraisals, Essays on CapitalLeave a comment

Essays on Capital, First Series: Essay Number Zero

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By way of an introduction … “It is simply misleading and vulgar to say of Marx, as Edmund Wilson in To the Finland Station and many others have done, that he was really a latter-day prophet[.]” – “Piety without content,” Susan Sontag [1961] “Marx’s thought marks a watershed.  Its roots reach back to Joachim of Fiore and further, to the inspired utterances of the Old Testament prophets.” – Reasons for Our Rhymes: An Inquiry into the Philosophy of History, R. A. Herrera [2001] “Better dead than Red.” – Anti-communist saying [c. 1950s] Karl Marx is a controversial, misunderstood, and often … Continue reading Essays on Capital, First Series: Essay Number Zero

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Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (1867), by Karl Marx

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Two years after the American Civil War ended and nearly two decades after revolutions ravaged the European continent, Karl Marx, a secular Jew living in exile in Great Britain, published the first volume of Capital: A Critique of Political Economy.  Two more volumes would follow.  The plan involved an outline for six volumes, a monumental undertaking even to someone as prolific as Marx was.  Friedrich Engels would go on to edit and compile the second and third volumes in addition to editing future editions of Volume 1. Volume 1 of Capital can be seen bookending Marx’s fecund writing career.  He … Continue reading Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (1867), by Karl Marx

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books, books I'm reading, Critic's Notebook2 Comments

Critic’s Notebook: A Demanding Read, Part II (Non-fiction)

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The act of reading can exact a demanding price from the reader.  If one lacks preparation, he or she can be left in a wallow of ignorance.  Certain titles exist that a reader approaches with caution.  The Cantos of Ezra Pound, Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, and many others.  Non-fiction works also intimidate potential readers.  I am currently reading the second volume of Henry Kissinger’s memoirs, Years of Upheaval, and the first volume of Capital by Karl Marx.  Each extracts certain demands from the reader in its own particular way. Yes, this book actually exists. … Continue reading Critic’s Notebook: A Demanding Read, Part II (Non-fiction)

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books, The Art of Reviewing3 Comments

The Art of Reviewing: Cintra Wilson (Part One)

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Every blog needs a large-scale project. The Art of Reviewing will explore reviewing as an art form and as a valuable element to understanding society.  During this project, I will profile specific reviewers of merit.  Several specific cases also explore other facets of reviewing. Cintra Wilson Cintra Wilson was a columnist at Salon, retail reviewer in the New York Times Fashion & Style section (Critical Shopper), and lately political columnist (the C-Word), appearing in the New Haven Advocate, the Hartford Courant, and the Fairfield Weekly.  Wilson also authored the ferocious cultural commentary entitled A Massive Swelling: celebrity re-examined as a … Continue reading The Art of Reviewing: Cintra Wilson (Part One)

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The Art of Reviewing Special Edition(TM): The 20 Minute “Avatar” Review

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Every blog needs a large-scale project. The Art of Reviewing will explore reviewing as an art form and as a valuable element to understanding society.  During this project, I will profile specific reviewers of merit.  Several specific cases also explore other facets of reviewing. If you haven’t seen it already, it’s making the rounds on Ye Olde Nettertubes.  It’s a twenty-minute review of James Cameron’s blockbuster Avatar. Here’s the review, in two parts: *** COMMENTARY This review is a bit long and a bit cynical, but it makes a number of valid points.  It is an artful combination of pop … Continue reading The Art of Reviewing Special Edition(TM): The 20 Minute “Avatar” Review

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Journey to the End of the Night (1932), by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

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In the black heart of the Great Depression, as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Adolf Hitler rose to power, Louis-Ferdinand Cèline set the French literary scene afire with Journey to the End of the Night.  By turns darkly comical, hallucinatory, and picaresque, the novel charts the misadventures of Bardamu.  From the trenches of the First World War to French colonial Africa to New York City and Detroit, Bardamu experiences each place with his own jaundiced eyes.  Eventually he returns back to suburban Paris, a small-time doctor working with impoverished patients.  Bardamu is not alone.  His friend, one Robinson, accompanies him as … Continue reading Journey to the End of the Night (1932), by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

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Hard Times by Charles Dickens

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Yuck! Soot, coal, suffering. Rinse, lather, repeat. Even by the standards of Dickens’ classic sentimentality for the underdog, this novel is a dud. Probably not the best introduction to Charles Dickens unless you want your child to enjoy the pleasures of never reading again. This novel makes Zola’s Germinal, also about downtrodden coal miners, seem like a work of candy-colored upbeat positivity. Dickens’s advice to coal miners getting steamrolled by the Man. Continue reading Hard Times by Charles Dickens

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Dollhouse Riffs, film, The Internet, TVLeave a comment

Dollhouse Riffs: Riff #7: Dollhouse sent to the Attic

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Good bye, Echo. Sent to the Attic Echo: Everyone’s unhappy today. Topher: Somebody put her tiny little thinking cap on! Spy in the House of Love The inevitable has occurred.  Dollhouse, the science fiction series masterminded by Joss Whedon, fought against dismal ratings and executive meddling only to finally get canceled after two seasons.  To use the jargon of Adele DeWitt, the series was “sent to the Attic.” While the Dollhouse cancellation is traumatic for fans, viewers must also take a step back from emotional reaction and explore the possibilities.  The TV landscape and the media landscape are radically different … Continue reading Dollhouse Riffs: Riff #7: Dollhouse sent to the Attic

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