Ablinger Franz In the late 1970s, the historian Christopher Lasch famously described America as a culture of narcissism. Today we might well be called a nation of dysregulation. The signs that something is amiss in our inner mechanisms of control and restraint are everywhere. Link
In the winter of 1795 a young, talented and cheeky man named William-Henry Ireland signed the bottom of a tattered piece of paper “Wm Shakespeare.” It was the first of hundreds of notes, poems and plays that Ireland forged and passed off as William Shakespeare originals. The world was so desperate to read more of … Read more
THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE AS TOLD BY WONDER WOMAN is an independent documentary feature that looks at female superheroes, warrior princesses and other icons of women’s empowerment in pop culture. Examining the history of fiction’s longest running superheroine, the film raises questions about the possibilities and contradictions of women as popular action heroes. Can … Read more
The vampire story as we know it was born in the early 19th century, as the wicked love child of rural folklore and urban decadence. But in writing these depraved tales, Byron and Polidori and company were refining the raw ore of peasant superstition. And the peasant brain had simply been doing what the human … Read more
If you’re one of the millions of Americans who use broadband Internet at home, you probably take for granted how deeply it’s woven into your life. It has transformed the way we pay our bills, seek romance, procrastinate, and keep abreast of politics and the lives of friends. The pre-Google era has become a distant, … Read more
Essay by Michael Betancourt. The collapse of the United States’ “Housing Bubble” in 2008 is the logical and inevitable result of the illusion of production without consumption; however, in spite of the financial collapse, and the bailouts of insolvent financial institutions and the on-going disinflation, credit and value collapse, the institutions receiving bailouts became stronger … Read more