Category Archives: Other (including pop culture of all kinds)

on Rachel Kushner’s novel The Flamethrowers

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Peter Schmidt

The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Flamethrowers is burning-hot good. It works on so many levels: a coming of age story; a feminist analysis/satire/tragedy re entrapping gender roles; an anatomy of “revolutionary” cultures of … Continue reading →

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Reducing the Bull: the NYTimes Gets It Wrong Equating Apple Design and Picasso’s Art

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Peter Schmidt

Brian Chen’s NYTimes’ August 11th article on design training at Apple is fun and informative, particularly the anecdote about design decisions that led to a Google TV remote control with 78 buttons (all the design teams got what they wanted) … Continue reading →

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Freedom of expression or the need to speak against oppression in a single voice? Coetzee and Gordimer debate

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Peter Schmidt

This 1988 debate between Coetzee and Gordimer (RIP) is eloquent and important, and VERY relevant for current debates in 2014. It’s given a fine overview here. The debate is notable for their focus on the _principles_ at stake; their disagreement … Continue reading →

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Sharing an essay by Leigh Alexander, from the Gamasutra website: The tragedy of Grand Theft Auto V

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Peter Schmidt

Gamasutra – Opinion: The tragedy of Grand Theft Auto V. For my own much earlier piece on the bizarre metaphysics of video games, plus one way to think about video games’ links to early animated cartoons, see Gamer (1999).

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on Edward Hopper’s East Wind Over Weehawken being sold by PAFA

Posted on September 14, 2013 by Peter Schmidt

Click on the link below for a short piece on Edward Hopper’s East Wind Over Weehawken (1934), being sold by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts to raise money to buy contemporary art. on Hopper’s East Wind Over Weehawken

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On “In Search of a Gay Aesthetic” in Fashion History, a NYTimes article about a show at the Fashion Institute of Technology

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Peter Schmidt

In Search of a Gay Aesthetic – NYTimes.com. Some key things you get to learn about in this sweet piece by Guy Trebay: 18th-century “molly” houses (yet where is the equally important invention, from even earlier, of the “fop”?); the … Continue reading →

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Air Effects (on Proctor & Gamble Febreze TV ads)

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Peter Schmidt

Anyone else besides me creeped out by the Febreze air freshener commercials on TV, sponsored by Proctor & Gamble? Some of them feature various folks blindfolded and sequestered in gross spaces—ratty cars, moldy abandoned apartments with scuzzy old couches, etc. … Continue reading →

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Two Mistakes Jonathan Franzen’s Haters and Fans Both Make

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Peter Schmidt

Introduction for Jonathan Franzen, Swarthmore College, Feb. 14, 2013. Good evening. Speaking for our community of readers, I’d like to welcome you, Jonathan, back to Swarthmore. As for you, the audience, I will do you credit and not list Jonathan’s … Continue reading →

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The critic’s job

Posted on August 14, 2012 by Peter Schmidt

Except for all the male pronouns, Alfred Kazin’s credo remains good advice: “A critic must reveal why we read him [a writer].  Everything else—the historical associations, the comparison with other writers, the placing in a school, the social, moral, and … Continue reading →

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Some Reasons Why Daenerys Targaryen’s Character Is Even Better in Game of Thrones Than in Song of Ice and Fire

Posted on July 21, 2012 by Peter Schmidt

  Note: this essay discusses books 1 and 2 of George R.R. Martin’s The Song of Ice and Fire and seasons 1 and 2 of HBO’s Game of Thrones.  There are no spoilers here regarding later books.   What thoughts … Continue reading →

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