Aug 18, 2021Choose Your Own ArmageddonWe don’t have to hear the trees to know they’re all falling. The doom feed is continuous — though by definition, we don’t feel it. The screens and speakers that bring the world to us keep it at an illusory distance. The premise that we could genuinely sense it without…Audiodrama2 min readAudiodrama2 min read
Mar 31, 2021The SuperhoodEstablished fantasy franchises put a lot of energy into “building out” their worlds. The really memorable ones know how to let their worlds sink in. In the fourth season of the freewheelin’ Dean Haspiel’s Webtoon comic The Red Hook, we don’t have to see the whole panorama of the fledgling…Webcomics3 min readWebcomics3 min read
Mar 25, 2021Play With FireProphecy’s not so difficult when both gods and mortals are so predictable. Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound and its lessons play on a 2,500-year loop until they’re actually listened to; a kind of closed-circuit surveillance whose creators knew they could afford to tape and walk away from. The only god who could…Greek Tragedy4 min readGreek Tragedy4 min read
Mar 17, 2021Wilderness YearsWhat if being alone is what we were really all waiting for? Isolation is the defining sensation of the 2020s, perceived as a passing trial but really the only precedent this decade has to refer to so far. Most of us sense ourselves as being not so much solitary as…Nomadland3 min readNomadland3 min read
Dec 27, 2020All I Want for ChristmasWhen lies become law, fables become duty. Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984 preserves its predecessor’s dreamlike texture and fairytale essentiality, but by this chapter the dream is going American, and bad. Wonder Woman herself, encased in coincidentally patriotic colors, has been semi-underground for most of the century, a battlefield legend…Wonder Woman 19844 min readWonder Woman 19844 min read
Oct 6, 2020Yell CutCan we ever live up to our mistakes? It’s a question pressing on all postmodern artmakers who wish to both proclaim and disclaim their love of mass culture and show the seams in both big-budget and schlockhouse productions of the past, that some honesty and affection can shine through. This…Grindhouse2 min readGrindhouse2 min read
Feb 17, 2020Member-onlyTerminal RomanticOriginally published at HiLobrow.com on February 14, 2020 Old loves can seem like much happier times in retrospect, and the labors of artist Jack Kirby — best known for defining the superhero form but just as significant for having co-invented romance comics — grow more cherished over time. …Jack Kirby13 min readJack Kirby13 min read
Feb 14, 2020The InheritanceLife is best understood sideways, and preferably not by the person who’s lived it. The shape that playwright Edward Einhorn’s family history takes is wound around the points of view of relatives, strangers, secondhand authorities and individual people’s younger and older selves, in his play Doctors Jane and Alexander. In…Theatre6 min readTheatre6 min read
Feb 11, 2020To Serve in HellOriginally published at HiLobrow.com on February 6, 2020 History is erased by the winners. The truest heroes get no monuments, but their shadow has already been cast. Sometimes, though, it may not fall for decades. Many Americans are so used to combat being out of sight, that when it comes…Prison Industrial Complex12 min readPrison Industrial Complex12 min read
Feb 10, 2020Life-Lessons from Birds of PreyBirds of Prey is on-track to earn less money than any other DC film, besting (or worsting) the champion before it, Shazam!. This may say a lot more about who doesn’t like it than it says about the film itself. That’s a badge of honor that the typical blockbuster would…Patriarchy5 min readPatriarchy5 min read
