On May 28, WBUR’s program “Here and Now” aired a segment about Wagner’s opera “The Ring” and its influence on comic books. (I’d embed it here, but they don’t let you download the MP3. You can listen at the link. Just scroll down the page when you get there.) Apparently many characters from graphic novels [...]
Posts under ‘psychology’
Tom Burrell On His Book ‘Brainwashed’
I feel like everything I’ve been working on is suddenly coming together with a new clarity. On March 18 NPR ran an excellent interview with Tom Burrell, who worked in the advertising industry for 40 years and just published a book called Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority. I find Burrell’s story to be [...]
The Human Mystique
I have a feeling that when I’m older and reflecting on my experience as a young man, there will be a vital point in the story when I exclaim, “And then I found The Feminine Mystique!” It’s bewildering to consider that the work — which launched the modern feminist movement almost 20 years before I [...]
No, Darwin Is Not an Aphrodesiac
Three days ago I received an email from a reader concerning a post I wrote in July 2008 (you may want to read that post before this one). He was confused about the logic I used when discussing the virginity of Henry David Thoreau, which in turn was related to skepticism over the sexual activity [...]
Tryptophantasia Event: Feb 13 in NYC
Thanks to the wonderful serendipity offered on a regular basis by the Internet, I recently found an amazing Vimeo channel called Tryptophanatic Netvision. Or I should say, the channel found me. Kaliptus, the channel’s creator, added two of my creations to the list of mind-bending videos. So you can get an idea of what it’s [...]
There’s No Waking Up From Neverland
The imminent release of Tim Burton’s (epic failure) remake of Alice in Wonderland has me thinking about that story. What’s that? I’ve already offended you? You think it’s going to be wicked awesome? Well, you should stop sniffing glue. Have you seen the new official trailer? It looks like a CGI monster snotted all over [...]
Never Let the Fire Go Out
I expect to be re-reading books more often in the years to come. So many that I’ve read seem distant and vague now, probably because I encountered them before I had gotten enough reading practice. If I haven’t explained it yet, I was a late-blooming reader. I never saw the point when I was younger… [...]
The Only Truly Serious Philosophical Problem
“Even if one does not believe in God, suicide is not legitimate.” Albert Camus clearly felt no need for an element of surprise in The Myth of Sisyphus, his long essay that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. This statement appears in the first paragraph of the Preface, before the book even officially [...]
Che Guevara: The Jungian Interpretation
I recently watched both parts of Che, the 2008 biopic of Ernesto “Che” Guevara starring Benicio Del Toro and directed by Steven Soderbergh. I don’t intend to comment extensively on the quality of the film. However, its overall impact is questionable; that’s evident by its average score of 64 (out of 100) on Metacritic.com. I [...]
