Diana Wynne Jones
I am a lover of fantasy literature. An unabashed fan, which is not to say that I am automatically enthused by any dime store pulp novel with a fantasy label slapped on it or that I even frequent the...
View ArticleAfter the Banquet, By Yukio Mishima
Yukio Mishima—controversial militarism, emasculated masochistic romanticism of violence and tradition taken into account—still takes a place as one of the more important post-war Japanese authors. The...
View ArticleIntroducing The Magic Theater
After posting irregularly for sometime, (kind of like a stray cat coming around whenever it feels like it, expecting a meal), I’m pleased to announce that I’ve been tagged, and given a specific time,...
View ArticleBooks That Changed My Life; Special Edition: Steppenwolf
Editor Note: I was unable to push this out of queue on time on Friday due to personal circumstances, and have just gotten back to the computer now. Tell your friends and family to read this special...
View ArticleThe Magic Theater: Close-Reading a Short Story
Repressed Sexuality within Franz Kafka’s “The Judgment”“The Judgment” is a short story that on the surface seems to inhabit an illogical and absurd world. Therein motivations seem odd, and the...
View ArticleNew York Redistricting: A Dem-Friendly Compromise Map
I always seem to be a bit of an iconoclast when it comes to how I think New York should redraw its lines. And every time I get a certain format just right, and make it how I want it, a New York...
View ArticleA Boy in Wonderland? Transformations of Self and Identity
I've been gone ages I know. Probably can't blame that on being busy, insofar as I could have kept up with this, but chose to be as lazy as possible on the weekends. I can't promise I'm getting back...
View ArticleThe Rise of Nazism and the Sins of Generations in Michael Haneke's film The...
Michael Haneke’s Palme D’Or winning film The White Ribbon, A German Children’s Story constructs a narrative that attempts to explain how the Nazi era could occur. Set in Eichwald, a parochial German...
View ArticleThe Magic Theater: The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter
I'm pathetic. Let me just get that out there. How pathetic you might be wondering? Well, pathetic enough to write the first four pages of the following review in a single forty-minute sitting, and then...
View ArticleThe Magic Theater: Botchan by Natsume Soseki
The Magic Theater is the name I gave to this slot, a broad space where I can discuss books and sometimes mangas, and ideas related to them, and share it with other people who hopefully have similar...
View ArticleBeing There: Philosophy, Politics, and the Age of Mass Media
I have a certain handful of films that I claim as my absolute favorites, and amongst this small, rarified collection, sits, with its casual sophistication, Being There. Most easily described as a more...
View ArticleHow Independent Redistricting Would Have Changed the 2012 Map
Well, here is something I almost never do these days. A political race related diary. And of course, leave it to me to decide to tackle a giant redistricting project after all redistricting has been...
View ArticleThe Magic Theater: Let The Right One In
The Magic Theater is the name I gave to this slot, a broad space where I can discuss books and sometimes mangas, and ideas related to them, and share it with other people who hopefully have similar...
View ArticleHow Independent Redistricting Would Have Changed the Map: Texas Part One
Well, here is something I almost never do these days. A political race related diary. And of course, leave it to me to decide to tackle a giant redistricting project after all redistricting has been...
View ArticleIndependent Redistricting and the Political Landscape: Texas, Part Two
This is the second installment, after this first one:Part OneYeah, I said some hilarious things there, like, "I'll try to get back and finish this next week." What a riot. But the concept is still very...
View ArticleIndependent Redistricting and the Political Landscape: Georga
I considered tacking on "Southern Fried Redistricting" to the title, but it would have broken my format for the series so I'm wasting your time to mention it here.The concept behind this series is...
View ArticleGore Vidal: An American Voltaire
Several days ago, on July 31st, 2012, the great writer and American man of Letters, Gore Vidal died at age 86 and some nine odd months. My first encounter with Vidal, with the name, came in the Stephen...
View Article"Democratic Indecency"
I don't normally post such short tossed together posts based on a fleeting bit of irritation, but this time I felt like I wanted to share my thoughts on the Republican attitude towards Reid's remarks...
View Article2014 LA-SEN Mary Landrieu vs. a far-right Republican
Now U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is not particularly popular around here. I find she's gotten a lot of flack, even if she's never at the top of the leftist activist's shit-list as I call it. Still...
View ArticleThe Path to a Democratic House Majority (Part 1)
There have been so many of these, that at this point such introductions are tedious formalities. Basically, to contextualize what led to this diary was the constant discussion of how taking the House...
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