[Note added 09/24/08: There is now a sequel post to this one, offering several more examples of the Frankensteinian “monster amok” theme as it’s being used in contemporary economic discourse.] Has anybody else noticed the increasing prevalence of monster metaphors, especially Frankenstein-themed ones, in mainstream public discourse about the mounting economic and financial disaster? I’m…
Robert Anton Wilson and reality tunnels: a retrospective reflection
About a week ago, horror writer Mark Samuels — who’s a friend of mine, and whom I interviewed here at the Teeming Brain a couple of years ago — started a discussion thread at the Shocklines message boards about the concept of “reality tunnels” as expressed and examined in the work of one of my…
Hemingway, media culture, and the impoverishment of modern English
It’s been awhile since a conversation at the Shocklines message boards elicited a response from me that I wanted to preserve here at The Teeming Brain, but just yesterday it happened again and resulted in my writing an article-length piece that briefly traced my personal, lifelong evolution and growth as a reader. The inimitable Des…
The Internet is melting our brains
The current issue of the Atlantic Monthly (July/August) has an interesting cover story by Nicholas Carr — “Is Google Making Us Stupid? What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains” — about the effects of the Internet revolution on human cognition. I bought the issue at the airport last weekend while waiting for my flight…
Lovecraft and Me: Fellow wielders of weighty words
Apparently, I talk like Lovecraft. That is to say, I use big words and sound like a walking, talking book. This is according to the longtime reports of my family, friends, coworkers, and the several hundred high school students I have taught since 2001. But it’s the comments to this effect arising out of my…
Returning from Mo*Con III and resurrecting The Teeming Brain
What’s that? I run a blog, you say? And blogs are things that you have to update? Oh, yes. I had forgotten all about that. Yes, it’s true, I took an unannounced and unplanned month-long vacation from The Teeming Brain. I hope the suspense wasn’t too much for those of you who tune in regularly….
A meltdown still in progress (Headlines from the Meltdown)
GENERAL COMMENT FROM CARDIN: The meltdown has not been cancelled America’s economic crash and fall from international supremacy are still proceeding nicely, notwithstanding the proliferation of early calls for “the end of the credit crisis,” which seems to be bandied around as a psychological euphemism for “Everything’s great again!” and also notwithstanding the proliferation of…
America’s bill has just come due (Headlines from the Meltdown)
GENERAL COMMENT FROM CARDIN: America’s bill is due. Are you ready to pay? For those of you who still don’t know — and just where in God’s name have you been? –- Richard Heinberg is a major voice in the collective peak oil/economic meltdown/peak civilization conversation. He’s awesomely smart, insightful, sensitive, educated, and well informed….
Say goodbye to business as usual (Headlines from the Meltdown)
CARDIN COMMENTS: Bye-bye to Business As Usual If there’s a single theme that unites the past week’s crop of news, analysis, commentary, and prophetic utterances, it is that Business As Usual — a term that surely deserves the proper-noun caps by this point — is altogether dead. Okay, that may be jumping the gun a…
Joan Collins says tabloid culture has dumbed us all down
Who would have thought it? None other than Joan Collins, one of the living symbols of a former era in mass entertainment culture, deplores the catastrophic collapse of taste, intelligence, and attention span that’s been spawned by the current tabloid-ized version of that very world. Just check out this excerpt from a recent interview in…