By Sean Callaghan The plane has crashed. You made it out in one piece, but you’re stranded on some deserted island with nothing but a Swiss army knife and the wet clothes on your back. You spot a suitcase on the beach. It’s the only other survivor from the wreckage. You run to it in […]
Read more "The “5 Books on a Deserted Island” Challenge"by Sean Callaghan The Screw It Principle We have gone on at some length on this website about the problems we face today in our economic, social, cultural, political spheres, etc. A few posts ago Mark McConaghy made the astute observation that the fundamental problem tying all our contemporary failures together is simply the absence […]
Read more "Lego Utopia – Building Block 1: Being"By Sean Callaghan Marketing The Voice I know all the reasons why I should hate a show like The Voice. As a show premised on the search for singing talent based solely on vocal ability The Voice falls victim too easily to the glittering bedazzlement of televised spectacle. It’s over-produced. It magnifies the cult of […]
Read more "The Voice of Another World"By Sean Callaghan After the Event The dust and wreckage have been swept clean from Boylston street, the soiled carpets torn up and replaced in front of Marathon Sports. The memorial at Copley square now fights for its share of quiet reflection amidst the bustle of renewed business and midtown Boston traffic congestion. Meanwhile, news […]
Read more "Acts of Forgetting after Boston"By Sean Callaghan Anger. It has a mesmerizing effect. My wife and I fought in the early years of our marriage. We’re both stubborn people, and we were both committed to each other, which meant we were willing to fight because we knew we’d be together for the rest of our lives. During these fights […]
Read more "On Media Coverage of the Boston Marathon Bombings"By Sean Callaghan The Revenge of Marx? On March 25th, Time magazine published an article detailing a resurgent interest in Marxism. The title: “Marx’s Revenge: How Class Struggle is Shaping the World.” The basic argument: that the current widening divide between rich and poor since the financial crisis of 2008 has become so apparent in […]
Read more "The Homer Problem"Article by Sean Callaghan. Some thoughts on Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained coupled with my own brief, alternative history of violence in the Western. (Note: Spoiler alert for Django, Django Unchained, and Shane – though by now I think most people are familiar with the poignant last scene of Shane.) The Critics Quentin Tarantino is at […]
Read more "Violence Unchained – Quentin Tarantino Rewrites the Western"By Sean Callaghan. I used to love watching the Oscars. I used to wait the whole year in anticipation of drinking in the glitz and the glamor. I can’t do it anymore. Here are some of the reasons why. 1. Ricky Gervais. He changed awards shows forever. 2. It’s an event that lauds people who […]
Read more "Top Ten Reasons why I Didn’t Watch the Oscars This Year"From the 2012 Brave New Voices Competition. Article by Sean Callaghan Before I say why I love this spoken word performance, let me put this in context. It seems like I’ve been reading and writing a great deal about race in the last little while. My article on Quentin Tarantino’s new flic Django Unchained came […]
Read more "It Was Never Just About Race"Article by Sean Callaghan. In which I ask a simple question: what if there is no elephant? ————————————- I recently had the opportunity to speak to a group of men who had achieved a high degree of success working in the corporate sphere, and I just couldn’t resist asking them how they would respond to […]
Read more "The Other Side of Impossible"
The 14th Floor 