The parody sweet spot …

There is a point at which parody becomes sublime, when it is so well done, so accurately portrayed, that it is indistinguishable from the real thing. It is at this most sublime moment that parody transcends the notion of a “joke” to truly show us something fundamental about our beliefs and the contradictions inherent therein. [...]

Extending a story … A review of the Simpsons Movie

Back in 1989, when there was talk of the quirky, dysfunctional family from the Tracy Ullman Show short animations moving from their tiny 1 minute spots on Ullman to a full half-hour show of their own on the Fox Network, the main question everyone asked was whether Groening could sustain the Simpson’s story lines over [...]

Well, theres your Kwik-E-Mart …

As I reported here back in late March, there was a very natural marketing alliance forming between 7-Eleven and Fox around the upcoming Simpsons movie, and the fictional Kwik-E-Mart convenience store chain from the TV series. That alliance came to life this past weekend, as several stores have now been officially re-branded, as seen [...]

Opus at Salon

In my early adulthood, there were several cartoonists whose work had a great deal of impact on me. Bill Waterson’s Calvin and Hobbes was a huge influence on me as a young adult, as was Gary Larson’s The Far Side. But at least as important to me at the time, if not moreso, [...]

Drowning in the Sea of Information

Seth Lloyd, over at Discover Magazine, writes a fascinating story, You Know Too Much, about the exponential increase of information in general, and science in particular, that we are subjected to in today’s world. Its fascinating to me not just because he uses one of my posts as an illustration of “The development of the [...]

The Emperor’s Old Clothes

Bill Moyers has long been one of the sharpest and most in-depth voices in American Media, a journalist who can take us deeper into a story than almost any other. In his recent look at American media failures in the run up to the Iraq war in 2002 and 2003, Buying the War, he demonstrates [...]

Relentless truth

I tend to quote Salon.com quite a bit in my posts here, in part because I always like to support independent journalism, especially in today’s world of corporate media saturation, but mostly because they employ and publish frighteningly talented writers.  The contributions to Salon by regular contributers such as Joan Walsh (editor-in-chief), Tim Grieve (War [...]

A life well lived

Last night’s edition of The Hour on CBC contained the final TV interview for one of Canada’s most remarkable people. Dying of cancer, “Canada’s Conscience” June Callwood invited George into her home for a final chat with Canadian television media. It was a wonderful interview that was perhaps a bit more personal than I [...]

Who needs a Kwik-E-Mart?

If this story had appeared on Sunday, I might have suspected an April Fool’s joke, although there is a fair amount of marketing savvy behind this idea, in my opinion. What idea is that, you ask? News reports this week have 20th Century Fox negotiating with 7-Eleven to re-brand 11 of their stores as the [...]

I was hungry, did you feed me?

I haven’t raved much about The Hour this year … I like their new format, and I continue to enjoy George’s direct style (I do wish he’d get a bit more in-depth in some cases, but in others, he does fine), but he’s fallen into the curse of excellence … the expectations are so high, [...]