There are, for better or worse, two things with which Key West is synonymous: one is “Fantasy Fest”, the annual ten-day bacchanal at the end of October to which thousands of topless revelers flock. The other is Ernest Hemingway. With the exception of the striped concrete buoy that marks the island’s “Southernmost Point” , no …
Reflections on Ernest Hemingway, An American Icon Read More »
Summer 2020 An initial installment of my “Lives of the Philosophers”, composed in Plutarchian fashion during the summer of 2020. This series (on which I hope to expand) will comprise essays on the philosophers whom I find most interesting, and, more importantly, whom I can understand. It is my modest goal to compile a few …
On Friedrich Nietzsche: Lives of the Philosophers Read More »
The image of a portly Sam Smith traipsing about on heels and gyrating on stage at last week’s Grammy Awards isn’t one that I’ll soon forget. In truth, I fear that I may never forget it so long as I live. A week removed from the performance and it remains an image by which, no …
Sam Smith and Satan: The Meaning Behind the Devil-Worship Read More »
Inisherin is an island off the coast of an island, which is itself an island detached from a slightly larger island, which is, if you’ll bear with me just a moment longer, patient friend and reader, a third island separated from the land-locked continent of Europe. This, I assure you, is more than a mere …
The Banshees of Inisherin: One of the Year’s Best Films Read More »
When I was in the seventh grade, at the unripe age of twelve, I had an English teacher by the name of Mr. Bodnar. He was a quiet, unassuming fellow of middle age and small stature, of receding hairline and protuberant eyes, in whose genial presence all the children of Bunker Hill Middle School felt …
Babylon (and on…and on…and ON…for THREE whole hours!), like the ungodly city after which it’s named, was a confused mess of biblical proportions. The plot was senseless, the filth gratuitous, the writing sloppy, the budget bloated, the talent wasted, and the running time unmercifully long. *** There are certain sights, sounds, and substances to which …