Two or three of my readers have expressed interest in my posts on movies, popular music, and pop culture in general. And I’ll bet at least twice that many are interested. So, for you fans of pretentious pop culture analysis, here’s a roundup of relevant posts and articles. For the most part I’ve included only those that are fairly substantive.
For some posts on jazz and popular music, see:
Goo goo ga ga [on Lady Gaga]
My brush with greatness [on Michael Jackson]
For some philosophical reflections on movies and television, see:
Rorschach test [on Watchmen]
Is it wrong to lie to HAL? [on 2010]
Causal loops, infinite regresses, and information [on Timecrimes]
Twist ending [on Rod Serling]
How to animate a corpse [on the Night Gallery episode “Cool Air”]
Cinematic representation [on The Spanish Prisoner, Arachnophobia, and some other movies]
The metaphysics of bionic implants [on The Six Million Dollar Man, Iron Man, etc.]
The metaphysics of bionic implants [on The Six Million Dollar Man, Iron Man, etc.]
Is a picture worth a thousand words? [from the old Right Reason blog]
For some science fiction related posts, see:
The dreaded causa sui [on Robert Heinlein’s “By His Bootstraps”]
Speaking of conspiracy theories, here are a few pieces on that subject, which is relevant to contemporary popular culture:
For some posts on comic books, see:
No laughing matter [on Wally Wood and Steve Ditko]
You drinkers out there might enjoy:
The phenomenology of spirits [on Scotch]
For some general thoughts on conservatism and popular culture, see:
(My post on “Pop culture and the lure of Platonism” linked to above is also relevant, as are some of the other music-related posts.)
Finally, some book reviews and the like related to pop culture themes:
Twilight of the Mad Men [on Fred Kaplan’s 1959: The Year Everything Changed]
Unbroken and the problem of evil [on Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken]
Unbroken and the problem of evil [on Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken]
Catacomb culture [on Roger Scruton’s An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture]
This last one is a bit of a museum piece -- the prose a bit too purple, the tone a bit less light than I usually tend to be, and the overall attitude reflective of the fact that I had not yet entirely worked my way out of a C3 type atheism. Anwyay, whatever I now think of the review, I still think Scruton’s book is excellent.
