The cacophony of contemporary popular culture makes it hard to discern the call of truth and wisdom. There is no area in which practicing asceticism is more important.
Rod DreherTags: wisdom truth pop-culture asceticism
Outside of the dreary rubbish that is churned out by god knows how many hacks of varying degrees of talent, the novel is, it seems to me, a very special and rarefied kind of literary form, and was, for a brief moment only, wide-ranging in its sociocultural influence. For the most part, it has always been an acquired taste and it asks a good deal from its audience. Our great contemporary problem is in separating that which is really serious from that which is either frivolously and fashionably "radical" and that which is a kind of literary analogy to the Letterman show. It's not that there is pop culture around, it's that so few people can see the difference between it and high culture, if you will. Morton Feldman is not Stephen Sondheim. The latter is a wonderful what-he-is, but he is not what-he-is-not. To pretend that he is is to insult Feldman and embarrass Sondheim, to enact a process of homogenization that is something like pretending that David Mamet, say, breathes the same air as Samuel Beckett. People used to understand that there is, at any given time, a handful of superb writers or painters or whatever--and then there are all the rest. Nothing wrong with that. But it now makes people very uncomfortable, very edgy, as if the very idea of a Matisse or a Charles Ives or a Thelonious Monk is an affront to the notion of "ain't everything just great!" We have the spectacle of perfectly nice, respectable, harmless writers, etc., being accorded the status of important artists...Essentially the serious novelist should do what s/he can do and simply forgo the idea of a substantial audience.
Gilbert SorrentinoTags: art literature criticism novel differences pop-culture analysis post-modern mulligan-stew
Our best moral stories don’t tell us what is right or wrong in every situation, but they show us what one character did in one situation at one time. Readers, viewers, and listeners are supposed to extrapolate the moral meaning from the story. We’re not supposed to have it handed to us.
Jonathan D. FitzgeraldTags: morality pop-culture morality-without-religion new-sincerity
So this needs to be said, and so I will try to say it
Jason NajumTags: inspirational philosophy memoir culture culture-critique pop-culture
It's the only way anything will change. Because we are both mother and child, cause and effect, villain and victim
Jason NajumTags: humor inspirational memoir culture culture-critique essay pop-culture
After college I got a job and started working. This new career had absolutely nothing to do with my degree.
Jason NajumTags: philosophy memoir culture-critique cultural-decay essay pop-culture
A lifelong movie I already knew the ending to
Jason NajumTags: memoir essay pop-culture cultural-criticism
I avoided one-on-one situations, eye contact, and healthy relationships. Instead I took refuge in drinking too much, cheap sex, and sarcasm.
Jason NajumTags: memoir essay pop-culture cultural-criticism
Everything around me affirmed there was nothing else I could do – yet everything inside me cried that I was not doing enough.
Jason NajumTags: philosophy memoir essay pop-culture cultural-criticism
In other news, Aang dominates on “Are You Smarter Than the Fire Nation”. Bella Swan becomes engaged to her boyfriend of one year, Edward Cullen, and unceremoniously sends Jacob Black to the “friend zone”. Pop star Candy Cane trades her controversial career for being a housewife (which was a move that is very unpopular with many of her young fans), and Jacquel Rassenworth is still the Internet’s biggest fame-nut (cue APPLAUSE).
Jacquel Chrissy MayTags: pop-culture funny-but-sad twilight-saga juvenile
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