The controversy around Sean Thor Conroe and Sam Pink raises interesting questions about authenticity, and how the comparatively well-off have a tendency (which is maybe a particularly American tendency) to grasp at low-culture and reject their relative status.

This work originally appears in MVU Press' Plutonics Journal Volume :(::) — I highly recommend you check it out there, not only because it's more aesthetically pleasing but because so much other great work appears alongside it. In his 1987 work The Ecstasy of Communication Jean Baudrillard surveys the rise of an increasingly information based... Continue Reading →

A truncated version of this piece appears on IM1776.com — The US media is, unsurprisingly, suffering historically low levels of public trust. Corporate restructuring and conglomeration, ethics scandals, and emergent technologies have all led to decades of tumultuous change in an industry so crucial to democracy, yet just that— an industry. But with the many... Continue Reading →

The following is an adaptation of a verbal presentation given for Justin Murphy and Nina Power’s course ‘The Politics and Philosophy of Georges Bataille’ — The greatest harm that strikes men is perhaps the reduction of their existence to the state of a servile organ… There is no cure for the insufficiency that diminishes anyone... Continue Reading →

“With more or less sincerity, people currently avow an aversion to useful effort. The avowal does not cover all effort, but only such as is of some use; it is, more particularly, such effort as is vulgarly recognized to be useful labor. Less repugnance is expressed as regards effort which brings gain without giving a... Continue Reading →

Over the winter I spent some time reading bibles' novel The Better Face of Fascism (ExPat Press) and corresponded with him a bit to learn more about the circumstances that led to such an unrelenting (I've decided that's the best word for it) novel. Find my review and interview here on Expat Press, or copy... Continue Reading →