Pop Culture/Film/Literature

In Praise of Smartypants

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 11 Comments

This morning, in stereotypical egghead fashion, I tuned my radio to the Saturday NPR programming, poured myself a cup of coffee, and sat down to read the most recent (June 7) issue of the New Yorker. In the mini-essay section “Talk of the Town,” located near the beginning of every New Yorker, there was a…

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Yes, Jessica, You CAN Do Anything Good

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues 2 Comments

I’m not usually one to forward or re-post YouTube videos of cute kids doing cute things, of which there are literally hundreds of thousands, but I recently came across one that I just couldn’t resist. It’s a little girl named Jessica– I’m guessing around 4 or 5 years old, probably pre-school age– standing on her…

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Why “Exile On Main Street” Gets My Rocks Off

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Music, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 2 Comments

There’s a contest going on over at No Depression (the greatest music magazine EVER this side of Rolling Stone) that they’re calling the “Exile On Main Street vs. The White Album Smackdown.” As the title suggests, they want readers to weigh in on which is the better of two of the greatest albums of all…

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Underdogmatism

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive, Sports, Weak Humanism 8 Comments

I’m a total sucker for the underdog. I don’t even care what the domain is– sports, politics, games, academics, business, love, war– if there is an odds-on favorite, I’m pretty much guaranteed to root for his opponent. As many people have noted, 2010 is shaping up to be the Year of the Underdog, beginning with…

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Here’s My “Top 25 Books” List, Now Build Me A Park

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Dr. J's Lists, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 6 Comments

Inspired by Brooke Foy’s project for UrbanArt at Brent Ferguson Park, where she is building a maze of huge, concrete books as a public art installation, I tried to figure out which books I would choose for such a project. Here, I’ve listed my Top 25 Books. I don’t think Brooke Foy reads this blog,…

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What Makes It “Art”?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Film, Film Reviews, Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 7 Comments

In the documentary film Man on Wire, about French high-wire walker Philippe Petit (pictured left traversing the space between the World Trade Towers in 1974), Petit remarks several times that his act was more than simply a daredevil stunt, but rather it was a work of art. This evaluation is echoed by his co-conspirators in…

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The Mirage

June 9, 2024 Dr. J Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 3 Comments

Recently, NPR had been hosting a contest that they call the “3 Minute Fiction” contest, in which contestants were challenged to write a short story that could be read in 3 minutes (less than 600 words). A couple of my friends and I said that we were going to try and enter the contest. Ideas…

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Cadavers, Immortal Souls, and the Rest of Us

June 9, 2024 Dr. J Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

I just want to take a moment to sing the praises of Mary Roach, essayist and author of the trilogy of books pictured here. Her first was Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers, which dealt (as evidenced in the title) with all the strange things that we do with the dead. Her second, Spook:…

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War Is A Drug

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Film, Film Reviews, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 5 Comments

Nothing yet has made so crystal clear to me exactly how much I do NOT understand about what is going on in Iraq than this year’s Oscar-nominated film The Hurt Locker. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who has been endlessly (and a little annoyingly) praised for her skill at capturing the hyper-masculine emotional intensity and complexity…

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Guess Things Happen That Way

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Music, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, RMWMTMBM Archive 0 Comments

I’ve often said that if God speaks to humanity, he does so through Johnny Cash. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Cash passed away in 2003, officially of diabetes-related complications, but more likely because he was unable to stand this world any longer after the death of his wife, June Carter Cash, a few months…

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