When Free came out in 1993, “The Gun and Bible” was instantly my favorite track. It’s a funny and absurd song, funny and absurd in the way that genocide is funny and absurd, that manages, by twisting and repeating one bizarre sample (discounting the coda about drinking and shooting), to efface the cold objectivity of [...]
Continue reading about The Gun and the Bible carved this nation
Language Log has been getting me excited about the documentary The Linguists for quite some time now, but the DVD costs $300, and it didn’t seem to air on any local PBS stations. Luckily, the movie is finally available (for a short time) online at babelgum.com. I strongly encourage people to watch this movie, as [...]
Continue reading about Disappearing languages and documentaries
In preparation of presenting a paper on dos Passos (that is part of the second chapter of my dissertation), I decided to buckle down and try to develop a sort of large grasp on the three novels that make up the USA trilogy, The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money. Part of that grasp [...]
Continue reading about Biographies in dos Passos’s USA trilogy
