Category Archives: media

On Bioshock Infinite

Spoilers ahead 1. It would be an understatement to say Elizabeth and Booker are well-crafted and believable characters. Sure, at first glance they seem to be cliches, bits and pieces of stories we’re heard far too often. Booker seems a laconic, thoughtless thug who can only be moral if tasked appropriately; Elizabeth a waif with …

May 23, 2013 – 7:08 am | By ashok | Posted in media | Tagged , , | Comments (1)

André Kertész, “On Reading”

for Barbara Gazin, Mark Alonzo & Raj Luthra Perhaps the strangest thing about the human condition is how one has to distance oneself from humanity in order to understand and appreciate it. The activity of reading can be emblematic of this distancing when it does not serve as its catalyst. Kertész’s photographic essay seems to …

May 7, 2013 – 10:35 pm | By ashok | Posted in media | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Dan Crane, “Magazine Ready, Except the Marriage”

Dan Crane, “Magazine Ready, Except the Marriage” The author shares a painful chapter in his life. He married a girl he met while competing in air guitar. She was considerably younger than him. He confesses they weren’t very “adult” about things, but at one point they bought a house that required major renovation. He ended …

April 12, 2013 – 5:53 am | By ashok | Posted in love, media, personal | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Briefly Noted: “Sex House,” The Onion’s Reality TV Parody

Spoilers galore ahead Sex House: Meet the Nymphos, Ep. 1 Sex House is written and acted well, with a very high production value. But it is also crass, filthy, gross and creepy. As a trashy critique of trash, it hardly seems necessary. Isn’t the best response to the garbage that is reality tv to leave …

March 29, 2013 – 5:31 pm | By ashok | Posted in media | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

The Inexplicable Popularity of Some Online Personalities: A List

So you’re online and you’re doing your best to keep to yourself or make friends. Typically this means you’re either reserved or polite, which is normal. You’d expect people would get popular by bending but not breaking the rules – they might ask questions that resonate with others but still be polite, to take one …

January 26, 2013 – 4:29 am | By ashok | Posted in blogging, media | Tagged | Comments (1)

Go Watch Onion Talks. Now.

Onion Talks are a perfect send-up of those TED talks that seem to be all the rage. Let’s talk about ideas! Success! The future! How we can make life better by thinking! Increasing productivity! For someone like me, who reads books slowly in order to take opinions seriously, there’s something off-putting about the hype: as …

January 16, 2013 – 5:16 am | By ashok | Posted in media | Comments (2)

…and I’m back on Twitter

I am not a good Twitter user. In fact, I’m probably the worst Twitter user ever. I find it very difficult to say things of substance without going on for another 10 paragraphs. If you want to add me, please do: @akarra

December 27, 2012 – 12:30 pm | By ashok | Posted in media | Tagged | Comments (1)

Mark Twain, “A Fable”

Reprinted from about.com. One of the few things I read in my undergraduate years that I enjoyed greatly. Wilson Carey McWilliams had us read this before anything else in the Classical Political Thought course at Rutgers – this was prior to Aeschylus, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Augustine. Your thoughts about the nature of criticism are appreciated: …

December 10, 2012 – 7:52 pm | By ashok | Posted in media | Tagged , | Comments (0)

A Tale of Three NYC based artists

I have to stop rewriting this dissertation to bring you Jay-Z talking to an older woman named Ellen. One of the commentators mentioned that Ellen is Ellen Grossman, a contemporary artist. Her work is incredible: “Resurgence” has a great amount of detail and the variation in it is astounding. There are videos where she explains …

December 5, 2012 – 12:38 am | By ashok | Posted in media | Tagged | Comments (0)

Want Better Conservative Media? Start Small

1. Some conservatives are worried that they’ve created an echo chamber distancing themselves from the rest of the country. (Of course, there are those who are not as worried.) I can’t emphasize enough that the vast majority of pundits and media outlets and campaign operatives and consultants are after your money. Those who aren’t after …

November 24, 2012 – 9:00 pm | By ashok | Posted in media, politics | Comments (0)