Literature
King Lear, Flower Child by Phillip Griffin
I am King Lear. As, I imagine, are you. We are propped up by complex and fragile systems, perched over an abyss of madness and chaos. We inhabit an intricate world of beliefs and desires, one that depends on a great many lynchpins which, when loosened, threaten the core of our very existence. Shakespeare's King Lear represents the human condition as well or better than any other piece of art because it features a king-made-beggar, the disintegration of a man with everything into a man with not even a stable mind. I'll return to Lear in a minute, but first--if you'll excuse me--i must do some work couching this discussion within the context of my personal life. Before I was an academic, I was a person.
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Gravity's Rainbow Review: What the fuck did I just read? by Trick
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Music
A Reflection on Radiohead’s: A Moon Shaped Pool (A Low Flying Panic Attack) by J-Bone
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Deep And Dark, A Night In Denver's Dubstep Scene by Phillip Griffin
*Coming Soon!!!!!!
Miscellaneous
The Plight of the Superfan. Why do we love balls? by Eric Toennis
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Mile Marker 17 by Eric Toennis
‘Unregulated shooting range’ brings arousal to the loins of many a purebred Montanan. Mile marker 17 is located to the north of Billings on the two-lane highway to Roundup. A left turn on to a dirt road leads to a plateau standing proud and lonely above the Great Plains and underneath the vast expanse of blue we call the Big Sky.
A Brief Reflection on Bertrand Russel's "In Praise of Idleness" by Jordan Finn
Early in his essay "In Praise of Idleness," Russell refers to “the morality of work [as] the morality of slaves…” an accurate rendering of how modern man views their indentured status within a (supposedly) post-industrial society. He proceeds to summarize this morality of “the new slave” by referring to capitalism’s fiat that “…work is a duty, and a man should not receive wages in proportion to what he has produced, but in proportion to his virtue as exemplified by his industry.” In other words, the perfunctory nature of labor is not valued on its goodness or even utility but on how it benefits the company and its role within the gladiatorial ring called the world market. It is a myth that businesses naturally produce the most efficient and beneficial commodity for the world. Rather, the bourgeoisie craves the superiority of social standing and the vested interest of increasing profits just to see if they can get away with it. One thinks of Macbeth’s temptation to usurp the throne not out of any Machiavellian triumph but in order to grasp the palpable thrill of power.