A recent Forbes article reported that even though Radiohead is letting listeners decide how much to pay for the band's new album, In Rainbows, it is briskly being downloaded through bitTorrent. So, fans can get the album legally for free, but many are still downloading pirated copies. In the first week of its release, Forbes… Continue reading Why do I feel guilty paying nothing for Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”?
Author: Mark Sample
Eric Rudolph and The Lone Wolf
I have often suggested that Eric Rudolph, who for five years successfully evaded the largest federal manhunt in U.S. history--until he surrendered himself to a rookie sheriff's deputy in the alley behind a local supermarket, exemplifies the modern fugitive. The fugitive summons forth the great machinery of government: scores of armed agents, ballistic tests and… Continue reading Eric Rudolph and The Lone Wolf
The Futility of Rowing
I've never seen a more fitting description of a rowing machine than in Don DeLillo's Falling Man: There was no fitness center in his hotel. He found a gym not far away and worked out when there was time. No one used the rowing machine. He half hated the thing, it made him angry, but… Continue reading The Futility of Rowing
Art and Terror in the Arctic
It's a good thing that August had record temperatures---seemingly endless days over 100 degrees---because I spent a better part of the month reading Dan Simmons' leviathan of a novel The Terror, a semi-historical account of a failed bid in the 1840s to chart the legendary "northwest passage" through the frozen arctic. Simmons accomplishes much in… Continue reading Art and Terror in the Arctic
The readymades on my neighbor’s lawn; or, The ghost of Duchamp alights in North Carolina briefly and is gone.
The night before trash day in suburbia rarely brings such exciting visions as this Duchampian fountain on my neighbor's curb. A tremendous storm---the first rain in many weeks---had just passed through, and the porcelain sparkled as if some great wet mythic meteorological Tidy Bowl Man had scoured everything clean. In suburbia, on the night before… Continue reading The readymades on my neighbor’s lawn; or, The ghost of Duchamp alights in North Carolina briefly and is gone.
Gonzales Resigns
Jack Balkin over over at Balkinization says it best: As for Mr. Gonzales, he was a disgrace to the office. There are many roles he could have competently filled-- and did fill-- in his career. The Nation's chief law enforcement officer was not one of them. He abused his office for political gain, repeatedly misled… Continue reading Gonzales Resigns
Is this fireman a little too happy?
This firetruck is a Melissa & Doug puzzle our son used to play with. I was staring at the puzzle the other day, in an odd moment of nothing to do. And it dawned on me that perhaps one of the firemen is a little too happy? Now, I'm not the kind of person inclined… Continue reading Is this fireman a little too happy?
The CIA, Interrogation, and Mortimer Snerd
I've written before about the creepy interrogation manual the CIA issued in 1983 on "Human Resource Exploitation." The precursor to this manual is the infamous Kubark report, written in 1963. This CIA document outlines various coercive and non-coercive methods of gathering "counterintelligence information" from uncooperative sources. Over forty years later, some of the coercive techniques… Continue reading The CIA, Interrogation, and Mortimer Snerd
Puff the Magic Cereal Box
A while ago I posted a few pics of my cereal box wall. I still occasionally come across a cereal box worth photographing, even if it's not in wall form. Here is "Organic Wild Puffs"---one of the trippiest cereal boxes I've ever seen (larger version). Decorated in faux-Aztec imagery, the box suggests a cereal that… Continue reading Puff the Magic Cereal Box
Before Borat…
Long before Borat from Kazakhstan, there was Zladko Vladcik from Molvania... [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp_PIjc2ga4]
Can we really be fair?
So I did my jury service. More details later, but first I want to consider all the preliminaries that go up to the actual trial, namely jury selection and the question of "fairness." I went through the selection process for two different trials (the first trial was settled in a plea bargain just after the… Continue reading Can we really be fair?
How to get out of jury duty
Actually, this post is not about how to get out of jury duty. I'd be the wrong person to write that, since I'm in the jury assembly room right now, waiting to hear if I'll be called to serve for a trial. As I wait, I keep thinking back to the last time I was… Continue reading How to get out of jury duty
What I hate about books about videogames
There's been a burst of scholarly books about videogames in the past two years, and I've been going through as many as I can get my hands on. While there are astonishingly bright spots in individual books, the books overall have repeatedly been disappointing. I've begun noticing trends of things I hate about academic books… Continue reading What I hate about books about videogames
Tony Soprano Did Not Get Whacked
It seems that public opinion is shifting toward the idea that Tony Soprano was whacked in The Sopranos series finale after the screen went black. That possibility can never entirely be ruled out, which is part of the brilliance of the abrupt, unsatisfying final seconds of the series. I want to suggest, however, that the… Continue reading Tony Soprano Did Not Get Whacked
More of the Cereal Box Wall
Eventually the cereal box wall had to come down. I wish I had a picture of that sight but I don't. It was a mountain of empty cereal boxes, hundreds of them on my dining room floor in the sad little Pheasant Run apartment complex, where I could see and hear the four lanes of… Continue reading More of the Cereal Box Wall