The country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago, has introduced a new 21st Century genre: novels thumbed out of cellphones, republished in book form, that have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it, selling hundreds of thousands of hardbound copies
There's a modest, nondescript house about 30 miles outside of Turin, Italy that serves as the gateway to what the Italian government calls the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Today is Black Friday. It's not a commemoration of a catastrophe or a day to remember our war dead. It does not give us pause to reflect upon a plague that has afflicted us or to ponder a collective tragedy that we have all witnessed. There is nothing sacred about Black Friday, it's another shopping day, but not just any shopping day: it is the biggest day of the year for retailers and the beginning of the Christmas selling season.
Sometimes, there is a bit of news that appears not to have been publicized as much as one would think. This story is based upon one such tidbit. Rich Johnston from Comic Book Resources in his "Lying in the Gutters" column has revealed that Bruce Wayne is to be killed off next year by DC comics.
Before we get to the outraged commentary on why this is a phenomenally bad idea, let’s get the facts down as they’ve been reported.
According to Forbes Magazine, physicist Albert Einstein is the fifth highest earning dead celebrity of 2007. Perched atop of list for the sixth time in its seven-year history was the King of Rock-and-Roll Elvis Presley, whose estate earned $49 million dollars in the period between October 2006 and October 2007 (with $35 million of that amount generated by Graceland admissions alone).
Jedi and Sith mark your calendars. On the night of November 16th, an epic lightsabre battle is set to take place in front of a museum that "looks like a Jawa Sandcrawler" (the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum). 1,000 blacklight-reactive, meter-long cardboard tubes will be distributed to the assembled and six massive blacklight cannons will be aimed at the fighters. Starting at 9:30 pm EST, the ensuing mayhem will rage until every single tube is destroyed.
Is he joking? Is he serious? Does it matter?! The Daily Galaxy mentioned earlier that we thought Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart (or both -although Stewart has been losing it lately; his interview with Chris Matthews was a disaster) should make a run for the white house. You just never know for sure if Colbert stands a real chance until the votes are in.
I'm a huge fan of myths. How can this appreciation of things fictional be reconciled with an equal fondness for cold, hard science? Well, most mythology grows from roots buried deep in a fact-rich tilth... or we're simply waiting for proof to surface.
If you live in a big city, or fairly close to a major urban center, you've probably got some IKEA in your home. In his debut novel, Generation-X: Tales of an Accelerated Culture, writer and futurist Douglas Coupland dubbed the company's products "semi-disposable Swedish furniture."
The country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago, has introduced a new 21st Century genre: novels thumbed out of cellphones, republished in book form, that have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it, selling hundreds of thousands of hardbound copies
There's a modest, nondescript house about 30 miles outside of Turin, Italy that serves as the gateway to what the Italian government calls the Eighth Wonder of the World.
Today is Black Friday. It's not a commemoration of a catastrophe or a day to remember our war dead. It does not give us pause to reflect upon a plague that has afflicted us or to ponder a collective tragedy that we have all witnessed. There is nothing sacred about Black Friday, it's another shopping day, but not just any shopping day: it is the biggest day of the year for retailers and the beginning of the Christmas selling season.
Sometimes, there is a bit of news that appears not to have been publicized as much as one would think. This story is based upon one such tidbit. Rich Johnston from Comic Book Resources in his "Lying in the Gutters" column has revealed that Bruce Wayne is to be killed off next year by DC comics.
Before we get to the outraged commentary on why this is a phenomenally bad idea, let’s get the facts down as they’ve been reported.
According to Forbes Magazine, physicist Albert Einstein is the fifth highest earning dead celebrity of 2007. Perched atop of list for the sixth time in its seven-year history was the King of Rock-and-Roll Elvis Presley, whose estate earned $49 million dollars in the period between October 2006 and October 2007 (with $35 million of that amount generated by Graceland admissions alone).
Jedi and Sith mark your calendars. On the night of November 16th, an epic lightsabre battle is set to take place in front of a museum that "looks like a Jawa Sandcrawler" (the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum). 1,000 blacklight-reactive, meter-long cardboard tubes will be distributed to the assembled and six massive blacklight cannons will be aimed at the fighters. Starting at 9:30 pm EST, the ensuing mayhem will rage until every single tube is destroyed.
Is he joking? Is he serious? Does it matter?! The Daily Galaxy mentioned earlier that we thought Stephen Colbert or Jon Stewart (or both -although Stewart has been losing it lately; his interview with Chris Matthews was a disaster) should make a run for the white house. You just never know for sure if Colbert stands a real chance until the votes are in.
I'm a huge fan of myths. How can this appreciation of things fictional be reconciled with an equal fondness for cold, hard science? Well, most mythology grows from roots buried deep in a fact-rich tilth... or we're simply waiting for proof to surface.
If you live in a big city, or fairly close to a major urban center, you've probably got some IKEA in your home. In his debut novel, Generation-X: Tales of an Accelerated Culture, writer and futurist Douglas Coupland dubbed the company's products "semi-disposable Swedish furniture."
“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.”
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