07/22/2013 - 3:21am

What "Big Data" doesn't understand about literature could fill a book that it would never read

by Benjamin Wachs


Hey, remember how the internet was going to end racism?  How the digital revolution would close the gaps between the haves and have-nots?  Maybe eliminate money altogether?

Remember that?

It’s cute when little children assign their toys superpowers.  It’s...




07/12/2013 - 12:46am

The deconstruction of "race" as a discourse in Dr. ... oh, Who are we kidding?

by Benjamin Wachs


It is possible to do the academic study of popular culture well.  It just isn’t common.  My hypothesis is that all too often the academic study of popular culture is undertaken by scholars who really just want to write fan fiction.

In 2001 a whole bunch of...




06/24/2013 - 7:08pm

The pseudo-modern death wish

by Benjamin Wachs


In the magnificent opening essay of his 1912 masterpiece “The Tragic Sense of Life,” Miguel de Unamuno follows Spinoza to hold that the essence of any being that can be reasonably called such is the will to continue being ourselves.  For all that we change – from moment...




06/02/2013 - 11:49pm

How TV got good - a Gen X story

by Benjamin Wachs


 

“Remember when we hated television?”

I’ve had this conversation with several fellow Gen Xers recently.  We circle each other warily until someone mentions liking a TV show, and then someone asks “Do you … like … Television?”

To say “Yes” back in...




05/20/2013 - 2:53pm

The Glass Artworks of Paglialunga

by Dave Senecal


Back in 2009 Omnibucket partner Dave Senecal profiled the artwork of Paglilunga for the Lithopolis Honey Festival.  Why?  Because it's awesome, and you should know about it.  That's why we're reprinting it now.  

 

Nestled within the hills of...




05/12/2013 - 11:29pm

Interview with author Dave Wellington

by Dave Senecal


Back in 2010 Omnibucket partner Dave Senecal  had a chance to chat with author Dave Wellington. You might recognize Wellington from his “Monster Island” and other web serials. Dave has tons of cool stuff going on and was a contributor to Omnibucket’s own “Brainchild…A...




05/08/2013 - 1:17am

Wait, we cured depression?

by Benjamin Wachs


Charles Barber writes in Salon that we now live in the Age of Trauma.

Every era has a particular mental disorder, you see, and for 21st century America that disorder is...




04/30/2013 - 12:53am

Let's map the cracks in reality!

by Benjamin Wachs


The Mechanical Institute (by Dave Senecal)

William Eggington has an essay in the New York Times’ “The Stone” blog about the way in which Borges and Kant(among others) prefigured the...




04/22/2013 - 6:32pm

The “Social Media Self” now has a manifesto

by Benjamin Wachs


Facebook ergo sum.  Or, by contrast:  I am not on Facebook, therefore I do not exist. 

This is not the conclusion of an extraordinary new article by Rob Horning, “Google Alert...




04/17/2013 - 1:27am

You Ruined Batman!

by Benjamin Wachs


I’m going to admit something.

Back when I was a kid, a truly little kid, I would sit in front of the TV and watch the old 60’s Batman show … and didn’t know that it was camp.

Come on.  What did I know from camp?  I vaguely knew how the whole “superhero”...




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