http://www.samplereality.com cybergnitohidinginaholeami Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:07:47 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Finally, my disjointed knowledge of graphic novels and science fiction paid off. Or at least saved me a dime. Summit Coffee, my local coffee shop, has a daily trivia question, which gets you a ten cent discount if you get it right. If it's local trivia or sports trivia, I'm a ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/08/06/graphic-novels-saved-me-a-dime/ Looking for something the wonderful German critic Walter Benjamin says in Illuminations about the cheapening of experience in a mass mediated world, I came across this haunting reflection that describes the world as my great-grandparents must have seen it, in the years after the horrific brutality of the Great ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/07/25/torrents-and-explosions-we-now-take-for-granted/ I've been wondering, how many universes can I hold in my head at once? I'm talking about fictional universes, of course. And by universe, I mean a world set apart by its own physics and cosmology. So, realist narratives all occupy the same universe (Sherlock Holmes and Tony Soprano exist in ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/07/18/so-many-universes-in-my-head/ Which offers greater narrative possibilities: The supervillian who never seems to die (or seems to die, but reappears months or years later)? Or the supervillian who dies but whose mantle of villiany is taken up by his progeny? http://www.samplereality.com/2008/07/05/comic-book-question-of-the-day/ The Happening is possibly the worst movie I've seen in years, and I'm just desperate to find some inkling of redeeming value in Shyamalan's mess. But I can't. Just a collection of loose thoughts that may help somebody else also trying to justify to themselves their rationale for sitting through ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/06/23/review-of-shyamalans-the-happening/ I've always been obsessed with end-of-the-world scenarios, from the original 1968 Planet of the Apes to Cormac McCarthy's 2007 novel, The Road. I've tried to intellectualize my lifelong fascination, even teaching courses on Apocalyptic Literature. But no matter how many fancy words I use in my courses ("a posteriori apocalypticism," ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/06/17/pop-apocalypse-shearwaters-rooks/ My friend Adam over at Random Thoughts Escaping posted the Ben Folds' video of "Still Fighting It," along with some thoughts about fatherhood. I've always loved "Still Fighting It," which got heavy rotation on WXPN when the song came out. I'd never seen the video before. I found it quite touching, ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/06/13/thoughts-on-ben-folds-still-fighting-it/ Toledo Zoo Amphitheater, June 1996 The zoo is crazy place for a rock concert, but for the Tragically Hip, this Depression-era amphitheater was perfect. And this was years before Gord Downie sang about Gus, the polar bear in Central Park (In Between Evolution, 2004). I like to think that the Toledo ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/06/12/long-live-rock-the-tragically-hip/ The Ark, Ann Arbor, circa 1996 Another concert with Tim, who was in grad school at Michigan by this point. Dougie was fantastic -- The Ark is an intimate venue, and as I remember it, we were sitting just a row or two from the stage. I watched transfixed as Dougie ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/06/10/long-live-rock-dougie-maclean/ I've written before about the way Africa still functions for the news media as a "dark continent" of primitive savagery. So what a sad gift this headline was the other day in the New York Times: "Warming Leads to Water Shortage and 'Africanization' of Spain." I was getting all psyched up ... http://www.samplereality.com/2008/06/06/africanization-disappears-from-nyt-headline/