social-creature

In 1938, on the eve of the Second World War, a relatively new medium called the comic book unleashed a new kind of character into the consciousness of American youth. Created by writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster, this character possessed superhuman powers and a dedication to using those powers for the benefit of [...]

During their New Moon promo tour a couple of months back, the Twilight Trio was on Jimmy Kimmel Live, and at the end of the show Kimmel let a few people from the audience ask questions of the cast. A girl came up to the mic with a question for Taylor Lautner. “I really like [...]

“I think Andy Warhol got it wrong: in the future, so many people are going to become famous that one day everybody will end up being anonymous for 15 minutes.”
- Banksy
Well, it’s the future, and fame has propagated apace with Moore’s law. Thus, it only makes sense that 30 years since the release of Fame, [...]

Britney Spears has a new album out today, and guess what it’s called:

That’s right!

Britney Spears’ new album is called Circus, and this is incredibly interesting to me.
Once upon a time, I used to be the production manager for a circus called Lucent Dossier–

This troupe is actually part of a whole larger Circus performance subculture that [...]

“Our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.”
President-Elect Barack Obama

516 Years since Columbus discovered America.
232 Years since the first democratic government was established in the United States of America.
143 Years since slavery was abolished.
138 Years since black people got the right to vote.
54 Years [...]

I know the Trojan “Evolve” Campaign has been going on for a while now, but just recently something occurred to me that I hadn’t quite realized about it before.
The campaign started out last June, with the premiere of a commercial featuring women being hit on by a bar full of anthropomorphized pigs. It’s only when [...]

“I am real!” said Alice, and began to cry.
- Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

I always find it fascinating when movies do things that executives didn’t expect. Entertainment, particularly the kind with narratives and characters, is like a Rorschach test where what we have to say about the inkblot and what the inkblot [...]

cut it out, internet.
everyday there’s some kind of new technology hoopla vying for my attention with the sordid insidiousness of a tabloid magazine at the checkout counter. and i don’t even buy that shit, but for some reason i can never resist trying to get the latest download on what’s going on in brad and [...]

first, you need to watch the trailer for sony pictures’ across the universe: here. if you cannot be trusted to come back here afterwards, however, you can just watch the shittier-quality youtube version:

ok then. now that you have been adequately briefed, we can begin.
i first saw the trailer for across the universe on quicktime.com in [...]

The goal of all human activity can’t be reduced to the leaving of descendants. Once human culture was firmly in place it acquired new goals.
- Jared Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee

right as i was in the process of rereading the third chimpanzee (i had to read it in college for sociobiology, and recently realized i’d forgotten [...]