I’ve been reading a bit about the effect of the smart phone on the attention span, and I must confess, I recognise a number of Johann Hari’s observations in my own behaviour.
Continue readingArchive for the Pretensions toward cultural theory Category
Stolen Focus: Recovering the Sense of Flow
Posted in Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Bari Weiss, Honestly Podcast, Instagram, Johann Hari, Messenger, Stolen Focus on May 1, 2022 by Jarrod Boyle
Instagram: Is Photography the Language of the Lie?
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags hall of mirrors, hashtag, Instagram, lie, photography, toxic positivity on February 12, 2022 by Jarrod Boyle
‘Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.’
– Oscar Wilde
Continue readingShare this:
Brave New World: Beware the Philosopher
Posted in Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading with tags 1984, Aldous Huxley, Artificial intelligence, Brave New World, George Orwell, Yuval Noah Harari on December 26, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
“I think Brave New World is the best science fiction book ever, definitely the most prescient. Huxley was writing in the early 1930’s with Stalin and Hitler around, but what he was envisioning was our present.
Continue readingShare this:
‘What’s Your Favourite John Mayer Song?’
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Cormac McCarthy, guitar, Harrisen Hughes, John Mayer, Marty Friedman, Ophelia, Siamese fighting fish, Slayer, Slow Dancing in a Burning Room, The Crossing on October 23, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
That’s a good question, my young friend, because enjoying John Mayer is not something a ‘real’ man is willing to broadcast.
Continue readingShare this:
Mirror Mirror
Posted in Pretensions toward cultural theory, trauma with tags body building, body image, Charles Bukowski, diet, Exercise, Fitness First, gyms, Ham on Rye, Instagram, Mirror Mirror, plastic surgery, social media, Sylvia Plath, Todd Sampson, Training on September 19, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
‘I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.’
‘Mirror’
By Sylvia Plath.
Todd Sampson is full of shit.
Continue readingShare this:
Ex Machina
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Alex Garland, Bluebeard, Ex Machina, Jackson Pollock, Kyoko, Robert Oppenheimer, Simone De Beauvoir, The Second Sex on August 26, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
Bluebeard is the grisly tale of a powerful, wealthy nobleman who marries a young, innocent peasant girl. She discovers, while he is away, that her new husband has beheaded his previous wives once they have ceased to amuse him. In part, it is a cautionary tale about a rich, powerful man’s objectification of a young, naive woman.
Continue readingShare this:
Ex Machina
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Blade Runner, Netflix, Parasite, Stan, Turing Test on August 24, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
I tend to peruse my Netflix and Stan accounts with dismay. Firstly, they clash with the portrait I paint of myself socially, as someone who ‘doesn’t watch television.’ Secondly, I find that I’ll open an account with a streaming service because I want to see something specific, like Parasite, for example, and then I’m confounded by the volume of crap I don’t want to see that comes with it.
Continue readingShare this:
The Neon Demon
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Aleister Crowley, Bret Easton Ellis, Drive, Los Angeles, Nicolas Winding Refn, Peter Bradshaw, Sergei Eisenstein, The Guardian, The Neon Demon on June 14, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
“Evil floats, weightlessly across the landscape of Los Angeles in Nicolas Winding Refn’s new film, The Neon Demon, co-scripted with TV writer Mary Laws and British dramatist Polly Stenham. It is a reverie of such sheer satanic rapture that Refn could be on danger of taking Bret Easton Elis’ crown as the Aleister Crowley of the 21st century.”
Continue readingShare this:
A Promising Young Woman
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory, violence against women with tags A Promising Young Woman, Alex Garland, Carey Mulligan, Dredd, Genre cinema, I Spit on Your Grave, Judge Dredd, Rape, Rape/Revenge, Variety on May 18, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
I was fairly horrified by the film ‘A Promising Young Woman’, especially the murder at the end.
Continue readingShare this:
Flannery O’Connor Hates You
Posted in Observation, Pretensions toward cultural theory with tags Dante, Flannery O'Connor, Franz Kafka, Huberty Selby Junior, Inferno, The Ramones, Virgil on March 20, 2021 by Jarrod Boyle
I’d never read Flannery O’Connor until lockdown. I’d seen her listed as one of the outstanding writers of the twentieth century, specifically in terms of her short stories. I had time on my hands, so I bought her collected works.
Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 