Decoding Netflix’ Dark: A Late Antique Apocalyptic Tale Wrapped up in Time Travel

This is not a spoiler-free post. And it is a longer post because the show is masterfully complex and deserves serious attention. Now that you’ve been properly forewarned, Sic Mundus Creatus Est. Thus the world was created. This is the secret society, the cryptic lines written on the door of time hidden in a passage in a cave, and the answer to all your burning … Continue reading Decoding Netflix’ Dark: A Late Antique Apocalyptic Tale Wrapped up in Time Travel

Ghazzal DabiriJuly 13, 2020July 15, 2020Leave a comment

Culture

The One about Déjà Vu

I have been plagued (no pun intended) by a sense of a déjà vu these last few weeks. At first, I brushed it off as too obvious. If some people have had the sense that life is being written by a fourth grader I and a whole lot of other people have had the sense that life is actually being written by the creators of … Continue reading The One about Déjà Vu

Ghazzal DabiriMarch 27, 2020April 2, 2020Leave a comment

Culture

Living With Yourself v. Mr. Robot

Live your best life! Thus spoke Oprah Winfrey. I can just hear her saying this in the same way she used to invoke the thrill of a 70s game show host when she was giving away cars to her audience members back in the day. Don’t let my tone throw you off, though. I acknowledge that sometimes we need someone we respect and admire (and … Continue reading Living With Yourself v. Mr. Robot

Ghazzal DabiriDecember 27, 2019April 2, 2020Leave a comment

Culture, Quickies

Frozen is IT

Fear. I let the word be there for a moment. It’s odd, perhaps, to start a post this way. But I’m curious. Did you dwell on it? If you did, did it evoke the emotion it represents? Did your mind wander over to your fears? Or did you skip quickly to this paragraph? I ask because when I see or hear the word, my default … Continue reading Frozen is IT

Ghazzal DabiriOctober 16, 2019January 27, 20201 Comment

Culture

LegionFX: A Love Letter to Dali, Tom Petty, and the Good Fight

If you’ve ever wondered what a live-action version of Salvador Dali’s paintings and photos put together would be like, then seasons 2 and now 3 of Noah Hawley’s Legion on FX will scratch that itch. After two seasons of stretching and twisting the guts out of realism and linear story-telling (season two was particularly mind-melding), Noah Hawley has now completely let his inner Dali loose, … Continue reading LegionFX: A Love Letter to Dali, Tom Petty, and the Good Fight

Ghazzal DabiriJuly 9, 2019July 16, 2019Leave a comment

Culture

Mad Sweeney: The Hero We Need

Of Gods, Angels, and Humans: The Neil Gaiman Turn in Peak Television, part 1 (Spoiler Alert! For those who have not read the novel, American Gods, this post contains possible spoilers for the show) Old gods, scattered across this vast country, live among us. You might know them as your neighborhood’s Nubian undertakers, the elderly Eastern European family in the apartment next door, the South … Continue reading Mad Sweeney: The Hero We Need

Ghazzal DabiriJune 17, 2019July 15, 2019Leave a comment

Culture

Christmas as a Site of Childhood Trauma Then and Now: Home Alone, Happy!, and Nos4a2

An instant classic, Home Alone is a Christmas family movie that was produced and released at a time of prosperity and relative social stability. It is about well-to-do parents (gorgeous house, big family, nice neighborhood, holiday vacation to Paris) who forget their youngest child, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin), at home as they head out for the family vacation. The movie ends up being a lighthearted, hi-jinks … Continue reading Christmas as a Site of Childhood Trauma Then and Now: Home Alone, Happy!, and Nos4a2

Ghazzal DabiriJune 11, 2019July 1, 2019Leave a comment