If you’re actually in a video store, the stakes are different. You’re engaged. You’re on a mission to find a movie — the right movie. You had to get out of bed, get dressed, and go to a store. You had to think about what you want, why this movie looks good and not that…
To us today, the word “black” carries with it a specific cluster of associations informed by history, culture, stereotypes, and literature. Othello may have started in conversation with Shakespeare’s definition of blackness, but today, he speaks with ours. A much more interesting question, really, is: Why is Othello black? Why did Shakespeare write a domestic…
Similar:Skin of Evil (TNG Rewatch, Season 1 Episode 23)My rewatch reflection on the Star Trek:T…DesignFanciful Fun in Theatre Factory’s “The Fantasticks”A great review from Pittsburgh in the Ro…CultureAfter a successful piano recital.CultureAI generated images from the prompt "guy being bricked in a prison like a poe story b…PersonalPreparing for some serious nerd time with the…
Similar:I apologize for this one. R2-D2 stars in Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical CATS.PersonalStunned by Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman and the rest of the cast in Ma Rainey's Black Bot…Stunned by Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman…DramaYes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocke…PersonalWrite instructions for busy grouches.Updating the graphic for a…
Similar:Distributing Candy at Holiday ParadeCurrent_EventsKinetic Theatre's "Hound of the Baskervilles" was hilarious. Kinetic Theatre’s production was ful…BooksGame night at our local library.Games"No, no, the drink, the drink,–O my dear Hamlet,– The drink, the drink! I am poison…PersonalSummer photos of the daughter.PersonalThe girl has gotten progressively more dedicated over the past few days.When you’re a homeschool parent,…
As new age synthesizer music, a rich baritone narrates: “Audisee presents: The War of the Worlds. The year is 2015 A.D. From the first launching into space, in 1961, to the establishment of a base on Jupiter this year, man has not encountered extraterrestrial life forms.” When I was about 10 or 11, I loved…
Similar:The spoils.PersonalT-Shirts for student journalists who recently leveled up to “staff writer”(with bear signe…PersonalI can’t fix this broken world but I guess I did okay using #blender3d to model this wedge-… AestheticsBattle of Agincourt — 600 Year Anniversary of Henry V's "St. Crispin's Day Speech"Sure, Marty McFly Day is interesting and…CultureHappy birthday to the son.PersonalThe…
Canon Australia wants to sell cameras. This soft-sell video flatters the creative ambitions of customers in order to make them want to invest money in a fancy camera. We should be critical of the premise, because the video is not an art project or a psychological study. Still, this is good storytelling, and helps make a…
What if universities stopped buying academic journals, and put the money towards hiring editors who helped their faculty publish their scholarship in their own free, open-source journals? I don’t know how much labour goes into running a prestigious journal, but let’s say all the universities that really need those specialised mathematics journals sat down and…
No Christians in my social media feed care about the design of that cup. Lots of people in my social media feed have reposted stories critical of the silly Christians who get all worked up about the design of the cup. Full disclosure: I don’t drink coffee. [C]ontrary to a few breathless media reports, most Christians…
Similar:‘It’s mindblowing’: US meteorologists face death threats as hurricane conspiracies surge“Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hur…Current_Events The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley Because what he never managed to grok …BusinessHomeward (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 13) Worf's foster brother interferes w… Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-…EthicsDo you remember Harry Monster counting with adorable little…
This is probably the first time in history that young readers themselves are demanding protection from the disturbing content of their course texts, yet reading has been seen as a threat to mental health for thousands of years. In accordance with the paternalistic ethos of ancient Greece, Socrates said that most people couldn’t handle written…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Similar:Saints and Poets, Maybe They Do SomeI wrote the following in 2004, when my s…DramaHide and Q (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 9) Riker, buffed up by Q, grants desires of the…Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…AmusingThe Value of Truth: We are living through an epistemological crisis. In the jargon of academia,…
The story of Play-Doh began when Kutol, a Cincinnati based soap company, was about to go under in the late 1920s. Cleo McVicker, just 21 years old, was tasked with selling off the company’s remaining assets, which at the time comprised mainly of powdered hand soap. Once that was done, the company would be too. …
Carolyn started rehearsals for PICT Classic Theatre’s Oliver Twist this week. She’s playing a member of Fagin’s gang. Last year in Great Expectations, she split a role; this year there is no double-casting, so she’s in every performance. I’ll be doing a lot of driving. This is not the musical Oliver; it’s the director’s original…
The conventional wisdom is that humanities majors are wasting all that tuition money and dooming themselves to lives of underemployment. The conventional wisdom is wrong. Humanities degrees are actually worth well more than the cost of college. […] The present value of the extra earnings that graduates in humanities majors can expect over their lifetime…
“We at The Recorder strive to ensure that every piece of writing we publish contains timely and thoroughly reported information, and because each sentence of this article contains at least one factual error, we made the call to kill it,” said editor-in-chief Hannah Lowry, noting numerous “red flags” in the article that included an incorrect…
Tonight, when I got home after all the evening’s ballet and piano lessons were over, I was plugging in my laptop at my desk and knocked down a little framed picture — it’s a photo my wife took of me on our first date. (On that same occasion, I also took a picture of her,…
Students in my Shakespeare class will be attending this play. Student actors at Seton Hill University are off on a journey through one of William Shakespeare’s most popular romantic comedies, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Not even the writing style of the Bard — sometimes difficult to master for those new to the playwright’s poetic verse…
When I publish as a scholar, my goal is not to make money, but to share my intellectual creation. That’s part of my job description, so my university writes my paycheck with the expectation that I will publish. My publications will have more impact if more people read them. Hiding them behind subscription paywalls will…