By Any Other Nerd

So a few months ago, I did an article for The Brattle Theatre's blog on Vertigo that examined the role of driving . I rather enjoyed the process of writing a film essay and recently, I had another opportunity to do so recently and this one was on Gods and Monsters. I don't know if it's because I better understand the editorial process at Brattle or because I felt more confident and comfortable with this film or because I just hit upon something that spoke to me more coherently, but I found the process of writing one much easier and it came together much more coherently (at least for me--please let me know what you think!).  I mean, I've certainly talked about films on this blog, including my top 100 films series or when I explored horror tropes within the film, The Orphan , or even the two pieces I wrote about seeing movies at the Cabot ( Catching a Classic at the Cabot and Cabot Offers Magical Experience ).  However, I feel like I was able to write a film essay th...

We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates My rating: 5 of 5 stars To listen to Coates contextualize eight essays published over the course of President Obama's run for and performance of President is powerful, insightful, and damming. Powerful in the ways in which Coates pulls together the strands of history, policy, culture, and politics to explain in different ways how white supremacy has been so woven into the fabric of American culture that it is nearly impossible to extract. That he shows this through the lens of the first African American president's candidacy and terms is what makes it damming because, in hindsight, it seems so clear how we got from Obama to Trump. Coates insights into the portrayal of Michelle Obama, reparations, birtherism, and the rise of Trump put words to the growing thrum of hate and white resentment that has been present before, during, and after Obama's presidency. It's a must-read for anyone trying to un...

It's about 6:00am and I read the words:  "I’m VERY impressed with the changes in your QPP, very! You have certainly done way more than what was required…great job!"  My Qualifying Paper Proposal (known as the QPP) has been accepted.    The words hit me like a ton of bricks.  I'm not quite ready to hear such positive feedback and if it weren't the quiet of morning, I'd do a happy dance right there.  I reread it again to make sure that I'm not misreading it, but there it is, I've done a "VERY" impressive job from an advisor who is overall friendly but not necessarily given to exaggerations in his feedback.   Revised QPP Draft Word Cloud Submitted in October The email gave me tremendous relief.  I had revised my first draft substantially--not because I had to but because as I unraveled one thread of thought, it impacted others and I felt I needed to redo a bit of tapestry in order to more clearly communicate my thought.  I did...

As some of you know, I've been teaching a popular culture course online for years now at North Shore Community College.  It started as a face-to-face course back in or around 2009 or so and then transitioned to an online course in Spring, 2012.  Since then, I've only taught it online and have had continually looked to update it and change how I approach it with each passing year.  Image Credit: Robert Huffstutter This past spring, I was the recipient of a Course of Distinction award from Massachusetts Colleges Online for my course .  As a result, I had to do a presentation and also video tour of my course .  I figured I'd include them in this post since I'm also discussing my presentation on Saturday, October 20 at the Northeast Popular Culture Association 2018 conference . I've also been a part of NEPCA for a long while now and will be soon stepping up to be the Executive Secretary of the organization.  In recent years, I took on the Area Chair ...

Wonderland: How Play Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson My rating: 3 of 5 stars Like many other of his books, Johnson takes what we think are sometimes disposable threads of history and crafts them to help us consider how ephemera can help us understand who we are as humans. Thus, he uses things such as coloring in clothes to illustrate how trading pattern changed and gave way to empires as well as how taverns produced the third spaces that gave way to political revolutions and the idea of public space. Each artifact he looks at (spices, music, games, etc) unpacks powerful ways such things have significantly changed the modern world. His point isn't necessarily to pay homage to the spice rack or worship the almighty chessboard but rather to help us understand that the flights of fancy imbued with such things as games or music are part of what makes us human and drive us; that is, our non-essential human elements can direct us in powerful ways that produce important (and ...

The Hall of Lost Footsteps by Sara Douglass My rating: 3 of 5 stars Sara Douglass's last book is a collection of short stories that will resonate with any reader of her work. A chunk of the book includes stories and background on the world of Tencendor from her most popular series. It's a nice final piece from the Australian author who was doing some great things with epic fantasy before many others who have risen to fame or before Game of Thrones made everyone else aware of how fascinating epic fantasy is. The other stories in this collection, to no surprise to those familiar with her, take place mostly in medieval times and England. The collection is a quick read, owing much to Douglass's style of prose that never linger and even when pausing to describe things, always seems to capture the moment's essence without inundating the reader. There are some repeated elements (the titular Hall shows up in two stories as do certain names) but each tale has i...

September was a good month with about 15 books that I enjoyed.  As you can see from the reviews below, I picked up a few more books on exploring racism and the like (and if you're looking for a good resource for recommendations around racism from different perspectives, be sure to check out this post ) and two other reviews that I think will be of interest to some readers.  Beyond that, there's not much to say about this month's reads but I hope you enjoy them! From #BlackLivesMatter To Black Liberation  by  Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor Taylor lays down a nuanced, powerful, and important critique to understanding African-American political and civil movements of the last hundred years. One of her first goals is to contextualize and explain the rise of the Black establishment, Black leaders from post-Civil-War to the present who have bought into the white power structure and while at times, advocate for equity and equality, are just as likely to throw people of color u...

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism by Jeremy Rifkin My rating: 3 of 5 stars Rifkin offers up a utopian view of the future that draws heavily on Chris Anderson's Free and many of the other texts out there that show us salvation awaits us in our technology. Reading Rifkin's work now that it's been out for a few years and it does indeed feel dated. So many of the promises that were just around the corner still seem far away. The idealized sense that the internet will make us more collectively powerful seems lost amid the last few years of extremist politics domestically and abroad. Massively Open Online Courses as the cure-all for alternative credentialing in higher education still seems less viable and we will somehow become increasingly sustainable through these technological breakthroughs come across as stale in a world that still cannot get the facts right about climate change. ...