Analog Nation

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I would be appearing in a horror movie. I suppose it might sound made up, considering this site has also claimed that squirrels live for 800 years, and that redheads are allergic to cardboard. But it’s true — I am playing a character named Doug in “The [...]

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Earth’s salvation rests in a display case on the Upper West Side. It is a cloth, somewhere between a rug and a shawl, with long, wispy tassels. A dizzying pattern weaves up and down its length, the work of many hands. It is a nearly perfect shade of gold. Dozens of pins hold the cloth [...]

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One of the basic tenets of popular culture is that the villain is always one piece away from completing his master plan. Sauron needed the One Ring. Belloq needed the Staff of Ra. Megatron needed the Allspice, or something — honestly, that movie made so little sense, my back started to hurt (I’m not kidding). [...]

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Let’s say you’re a scientist. You wear a lab coat, you rock the clipboard, you nudge the bridge of your glasses to keep them from sliding down. You have been in the private sector. You have delivered results. And as you toil away in your fluorescent, dust-free environment, you have one goal: To accidentally doom [...]

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Behold, one of the strongest forces in nature: the iron-clad grip of popular fiction. The page-turner, the blockbuster, the serial drama that sends us diving for the DVR — they sink their hooks into our fleshiest bits, and keep piercing until they hit daylight on the other side. Having witnessed my Dad get a fishing [...]

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(SPOILER WARNING: If you do not wish to know whether there are any spoilers in this post, do not read the next sentence.)

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