A Tale of Two Westerns
The harsh violence of Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove draw us in more than it repels, and the proximity of death makes the actions of its dramatis personae only more vivid and compelling to us.
Phenomenology of a Kiddie Ride
Posted on June 26, 2025
Image: Porky Pig in mid-gallop; photograph by Leann Davis Alspaugh.
Without a doubt, irony plays a large part in the phenomenon of Porky. His mere existence in a fanciful form at a restaurant that specializes in pork meats is deliciously ironic.
The Self That Never Was
We may be approaching a time when the illusion of selfhood is strengthened, not weakened, because we are surrounded by machines enacting it.
The Devils’ Citadel Extended
Can the works of the Mechanic Muse be put to genuinely human uses?
The Political Journey of Thomas Mann
by
Ed Simon
Posted on June 5, 2025
Image: Illustration for Death in Venice by Maurice Denis/Alamy Stock Photos; photograph of Thomas Mann, Zürcher Museen.
Mann understood, almost too well, the allure of tradition and irrationalism, of the poetic and the mystical.
The Metaphysics of Music
Posted on June 3, 2025
Image: From left, Thomas Tallis, St. Augustine of Hippo, Palestrina, and St. Thomas Aquinas/THR illustration.
Singing is not to be understood as an aesthetic sweetener.
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