Memory is an unreliable narrator. It seems so absolutely sure of itself when it’s telling you things that it’s easy to forget it can’t wholly be trusted. There are always gaps and discrepancies, sections that get revised in light of subsequent events or reshaped to soften the sharpest […]
Living just outside the gates of hell is a very convenient plot device. It handily solves the narrative challenge of providing a plausibly endless supply of demons and evil beasties for a protagonist to fight, and it’s not like hell ever goes away. Maybe you get lucky and […]
My town has basically one landmark, you know the kind of thing people passing through take pictures of. It’s a water tower. An incredibly phallic water tower. It’s like a classical Hindu lingam. Actually, it’s more than a phallic symbol–it looks like a penis. And at Christmas, the […]
“Not in my backyard” is a phrase that has acquired a bunch of negative connotations since it came into common usage in the 80s. NIMBYism usually means that there’s something you benefit from or rely on to maintain your lifestyle, but you don’t want anyone to build one […]
Minoru Kawasaki’s Neko Ramen Taisho (2008) is the classic story of a son trying to prove himself to his father and his father’s desire to recreate his son in his own image. Except Taisho, aka William Thomas Jefferson III, is a cat who makes ramen, and his father, […]
The title is probably misleading. It makes this sound like one of those Grizzly vs Shark or Sperm Whale vs Giant Squid books that my son keeps pointing out in the Scholastic Book catalogues he brings home every month. Maybe you’re envisioning the Ghostbusters, all geared up with their old-school […]
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The Cultural Gutter 