Well, I guess the time has come again to write the retrospectives. This was such a crazy year for me, I almost shudder at the thought of thinking of it again all at once as a whole… I’m going resist the temptation to list my top movies of the year (which would probably include Oceans…
Read MoreIt doesn’t really matter whether or not you know who bernadette is, because she poses a great question for the next installment of the Just Ask Challenge. She asks: What should I do with my life? Now, it just so happens that I DO know who bernadette is and I could, theoretically, provide an answer…
Read MoreThen why aren’t you listening to my radio show? Go to the podcast home for “Americana the Beautiful” and download all the episodes. Come on, is there anything more purely noble than supporting college radio? I can’t think of anything off-hand, except for maybe rescuing abused puppies (cute ones) or helping one-legged children achieve their…
Read MoreWhat is “nanophilosophy”? Nanophilosophy is the search for and study of very, very small philosophical questions. It was begun by the Department of Philosophy at the University of Waterloo in an attempt to drag our age-old discipline kicking and screaming into the 21st Century. The Century of Very Small Things. I think this is a…
Read MoreToday is a two-fer in the Just Ask Challenge! In response to my ealier post about Burger Friday, I received another Just Ask query from Ideas Man (who also wrote an entire post about this on his blog). Leave it to Ideas Man to skip the whole romantic story there and instead ask: How does…
Read MoreI read Don DeLillo’s 1985 masterpiece White Noise as an undergraduate in an American Lit course at the University of Memphis about ten years ago now. I was still developing my postmodern muscles at the time, and I loved DeLillo’s novel, despite its overly stylized and sometimes too-precious prose. In particular, I loved the very…
Read MoreRemember Han Solo? That smarmy, proud, devil-may-care mercenary from the “Stars Wars” movies? As best I can remember, I think he’s the first “anti-hero” I loved. After Han, I think the next one for me was the narrator of Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground. Since then, I’ve been collecting them like some sort of neurotic hobbyist….
Read MoreAnyone who’s ever read Jacques Derrida’s The Gift of Death, one of the greatest books ever on secrecy, has certainly had to grapple with the aporia of the secret. Of course, the “secret” of that text (such that there is one) is that there is no Secret. This is partly true because, structurally speaking, someone…
Read MoreSeveral years ago, when I used to manage an independent bookstore/cafe in Midtown Memphis, I had the pleasure of reading the book to your left, How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction. (Hey, what can I say? A woman cannot survive on Derrida alone!) The book doesn’t include a single hint of irony in all…
Read MoreI want to present an award. I’m calling it The Most Ridiculous (Yet Still Frightening) Article of the Week. And the winner is…. drumroll…. The Next Five States by Thomas Barnett (in Esquire magazine) The author begins his essay by bemoaning the fact that he will be the first Barnett in several generations to be…
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