Every August, a plague descends upon the city of Chicago. A plague so wretched, so sickening, so disease-ridden that parts of downtown have to close entirely. Police call in reinforcements and parents pray for the safe return of their children. I am speaking, of course, of Lollapalooza...
I myself learned to drive stick in Portland on a 1990 Plymouth Laser, aqua green with pink detailing and sparkles, spray-painted gold wheels, no muffler and a semi-malfunctioning fuel injection system. Paid $575 for it in 2006, which, adjusted for inflation today, would probably come out to around $300...
The color yellow causes insanity. It’s a scientific fact. And if you think I’m exaggerating about that, well I am. But only a little. Babies also cry more in yellow rooms. What does that mean? I’m not sure, but if you don’t want your baby to turn into Jeffrey Dahmer or Lindsay Lohan when they … Continue reading Yellow Snow & Other Similarly-Hued Important Life Avoidances
Awake early on a Monday, before her eyes could even adjust to the vague light of the world, she would reach for her phone and check her Facebook. It had her weather forecast for the day, and it was normally the first thing she would absorb of her surroundings, not long after the anxiety of … Continue reading Just A Facebook Girl in a Facebook World
Fallacy of the hive mind – 1.) Inferring that someone who makes a comment which aligns with a consensus political opinion or movement on social media possesses the same deep, ingrained, singular, core principles or characteristics as that group or movement. 2.) Erroneously clumping people into a spuriously-named, demographically or sociologically unofficial group because they agree with, voice their opinion regarding or argue in favor of a consensus opinion which is temporarily influential, on social media or elsewhere.
Anime is anime. If you think you’re just watching a “cartoon,” or mere, over-sexualized, hacky sci-fi nonsense…well, sometimes you are, but that’s never the alpha and the omega of any series. You’re always going to find a surplus of literary goo-gaws involved—those things which make you cry, thrill you, grip you or inspire you in ways you couldn't have been otherwise...
Welcome—saccadists, finger-flutterers, the deficient of attention and children and disciples of Burn Culture, alike—to the contemporary Age of Immodesty.
You can maybe get where I’m going to go with this. Depending on how good your King James English is. Mine’s terrible. I grew up in the inner city of Philadelphia, where they forced every kid in the 2nd and 3rd grade to take Latin. So, of course, back then I was like, “Bitchin’! Not only will I be able to decipher the Bible, but one day I’m gonna get a job as Secretary of the C.H.U.D. for the Philly branch of the Latin Kings...
When I was a kid, the highest future standard anyone my age could be held to by our parents, grandparents, teachers or the mumbling Filipino guy in my neighborhood who handed out cigarettes to ten year olds and only didn’t have to register as a sex offender because they didn’t do that back then was that of doctor, lawyer or President of the United States...
And that’s what many of them have come to view Disney’s latest trilogy as. Not only a failure, but a threat. To their own, personal history. Or at least the way they remember it. But as they say, hindsight never won 6 fair ladies in funny hats for the half dozen forested trees where the bears like to shit. Or something like that...
You think that’s unfair? Just type in ‘WTF’ into the Internet, right now. Or the word ‘funny.’ I guarantee you the results will come back: Bear falls on chainsaw, cuts itself in half lengthwise. Pregnant woman slips in the gore. People on YouTube write, ‘Should be another book of the Bible.' ...
And it took a little while, but with its unrestricted, minimum standard of acceptance, unthreatening appeal and perfect price to join, the internet—along with millions and millions of hungry, hive-minded social media users—somehow conceived and then gestated this comparatively talentless yet hugely popular 21st century monstrosity called the Internet Celebrity...