I first encountered the song “Lungs” by Townes Van Zandt about a decade ago. It’s the musical sting at the end of the seventh episode of the first season of HBO’s True Detective, a show we watch annually in the spring. It seems to have little to do with the content of the scene, but the vibe is immaculate.
Read MoreIf you don’t have the ability to bleed off excess pressure – if you don’t have that safety valve, if the exhaust can’t escape from the gas engine, whatever – then what you have is a very different machine: a bomb.
Read MoreI’ve been connected to the Sony gaming ecosystem for quite a while, and up until the PS4, they were fairly committed to backwards compatibility. As a result, I’ve had the good fortune of being able to revisit these older games when I want to play something but don’t have the funds to engage with something new. As such, the game is still fairly fresh in my mind, despite the fact that it is old enough to buy cigarettes in some municipalities.
Read MoreLet’s start with the basics. I’ve talked previously about how the role of the protagonist can warp things: with the way that we construct stories, it’s very easy for people to sympathize with and focus on the actions of a protagonist and realign their understanding of right and wrong – at least within the context of a story – to the protagonist.
Read MoreDespite the fact that I’m listing off individuals, what I’m really pointing to are specific images of people crystallized in popular culture. Marcus Aurelius was not always the Marcus Aurelius that is remembered by history and popular imaginings. The historical figures, considered this way, are no more real than the most crudely drawn stock character: real people are complex and contain multitudes. Characters – even the most three-dimensional, deep characters – are often the opposite.
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