Critique
A pugnacious but respectful engagement with the movies, TV shows, books, podcasts, plays, webisodes, social media feeds, music, fashions, and art works that are shaping American public discourse.
July 20, 2019, 33 Years Later
Some time in 2014 I picked this up at a yard sale. It was hard to resist, for a $1, with the day of the title coming up. Arthur C. Clarke, renowned science fiction writer, published this strange, heavy book in 1986, imagining this day in 2019 that would commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the moon landing in 1969. It’s not, Clarke was adamant, an attempt at prophecy, but (as he said of his work generally), “An inquiry into the Limits of the Possible.”
Other Essay Sections
Itaewon, Part I: Seoul’s Little America – A Depravity in Four Acts
These places exist around the world, these “Pleasure Island” communities near current or former army installations: Bangkok, Tijuana, Saigon, Manila, Okinawa to name just a few, all with a parallel motif of booze, hookers and cheap souvenirs.
Paine Day 2018
Motivating histories are necessary but imperfect things. Imagined communities of people become such by participating in aspirational stories of a shared past…
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