The Wisdom of Tobolowsky

Stephen Tobolowsky, in his new book The Dangerous Animals Club, has a great comment on drug use that really deconstructs our fascination with the practice – “[D]rugs create [an] ……

Pull a Pappy

“People like that RE-form. Maybe we should get us some.” Truer words have never been spoken in a campaign. In this case, Governor Pappy O’Daniel is trailing challenger Homer Stokes…

Meta-ambivalence

Creating a sense of ambivalence within a show is generally a quality of a good show, with good writing, good acting, etc. But what about meta-ambivalence? In “The Walking Dead,”…

Zombie Supreme Court

Over the years, we as a culture have expounded much on the impending Zombie Apocalypse. But one consequence I fear we have not fully appreciated is the effect on the…

Has Brad Bird read Superfolks?

Most likely, since The Incredibles shares much thematically with this 1977 novel by Robert Mayer. Many of the concepts with Superfolks are familiar, but only because we have been immersed…

Worst Book Cover Ever?

Is this book cover for Alien Sex, a fantasy sci-fi short-story compilation, the worst ever? Let’s look at the evidence. The background color is pus gray usually reserved for orphan-grade…

In Place of a Soul…

I read the sci-fi book Leviathan Wakes as a bit of a palate cleanse after the intensity of McTeague. Yet in the midst of this potboiler (I am using that…

Greene’s The Tenth Man

Graham Greene could have been talking about today’s political pundits with this line from The Tenth Man: “She was like an old weatherworn emblem of wisdom – something you find…