Alice Liddell, the “Alice” in Alice in Wonderland, photographed by C.L. Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll). Two new essays, both pegged on Tim Burton’s Alice, each taking subtly different (though hardly contrariwise!) angles of analytical attack. In the Las Vegas Weekly, I’ve published “What’s inside the hatter? The surprising significance of the top hat, in Alice […]
“I’m closer to the Golden Dawn/ immersed in Crowley’s uniform of imagery…” Left, Aleister Crowley, celebrity spokesmodel of the hermetic magick order, the Golden Dawn. Right, D.B. in his Queen-of-the-Nile Phase. Later, he would complete the intertextual circuit by embracing Elizabeth “Cleopatra” Taylor as his mother confessor, during the Lost Hollywood Years (’75-’76). Found online. […]
Photo: Mick Rock. Copyright Mick Rock; all rights reserved. Every Friday, Religion Dispatches, an online magazine of cultural commentary on religion, is running excerpts from my essay on Bowie’s flirtations with Buddhism, Nietzchean atheism, Crowleyite magick, Christianity, and Kabbala; the religious subtext in Bowie’s lyrics; the christological symbolism in Ziggy Stardust; and, on a more […]
((UPDATE: Okay, so most readers took one look at that 5,000-word behemoth of a post (on True/Slant, blogged below) and fled in puckered terror. A Teachable Moment. Happily, in these post-Gutenbergian times, the writer is able to wade back in with a scythe and clear a wider path to the finish line. Which I did, […]
Luc Sante, Folk Photography: The American Real-Photo Postcard, 1905-1930 (Verse Chorus Verse/Yeti). Read my essay “Ghostcards,” on Luc Sante’s new book, Folk Photography, on the Las Vegas Weekly website, HERE. Nut graf: To Sante, these [early 20th century] postcards constitute a “ghost telegraph,” as he told a radio interviewer. In Folk Photography, he writes, “The […]
“On Sports,” Daniel Clowes, Twentieth Century Eightball. Copyright Daniel Clowes; all rights reserved. Awesomeness: I’m now a contributing blogger to the content-rich (but seemingly glitch-ridden) blog portal, True/Slant. My page is HERE. My first post, “Jocko Homo: How Gay is the Super Bowl?,” a Queer Theory-for-the-Straight-Eye take on the super bowl, jock culture, and Masculinity […]
WHAT: “World’s Fair Use Day,” a series of micro-lectures (mine is 10 minutes, at the presenters’ request), panels, and film screenings about Fair Use “and its importance to innovators and creators,” brought to you by “Public Knowledge, a Washington D.C.-based non-profit, consumer-advocacy group that works on issues relating to intellectual property, Internet protocol and information […]
The vast Santanic conspiracy: Is St. Nick the tool of a plot too monstrous to mention? Illustration by Scott Ramsoomair, copyright Scott Ramsoomair. The Las Vegas Weekly just published my Santa-and-Satan: separated-at-birth? essay, the seed DNA for the lecture I’ll be delivering at Observatory in Brooklyn in mid-January. Nut Graf: Christian soldiers, marching as to […]
Illustration: Toby Thane Neighbors. Copyright Toby Thane Neighbors. My essay springboarding off Mark Spitz’s new Bowie biography—called, for some incalculable reason, Bowie: A Biography—is live at the Las Vegas Weekly. Attention Conservation Synopsis: Ideas discussed include boomer Bowiemania, The David’s effect on male-boomer notions of the heteronormative, the Death of the ’60s/Birth of the ’70s, […]
TONIGHT’S LECTURE HAS BEEN CANCELLED AND WILL BE RE-SCHEDULED FOR EARLY JANUARY. Reports of the Mother of All Blizzards, which is predicted to dump up to 20 inches of snow across the Northeast, have dissuaded me from braving gale-force winds and man-eating snowdrifts. Somehow, the thought of fishtailing all over the Garden State Parkway or, […]