CULTURE

Whether we chose to acknowledge it or not, culture impacts our lives in ways we don’t have control of. Culture influences our personal views, our laws, our collective values, and can even determine our hopes out of life. The thing about culture though is that it’s not always codified into something easy to follow. Culture can either move too quickly or remain stubbornly still to even notice that much. For me, I believe that’s precisely why it’s important to give the concept of culture the attention other academic disciplines hold over us because since we are each active participants in society, we are shaping the very culture we are part of.  Most of my writing on culture has been done on my own volition, but some companies have products that are related to modern culture and you can view some of those below. 

What Would You Do With Your Life If Work Became Obsolete?

I’m not going to spend a lot of time writing about Universal Basic Income (UBI) because frankly there is more than enough written about it from people much smarter than me. (BasicIncome on reddit is a good place to start by the way). If you aren’t familiar with UBI it’s a concept in which a nation provides monthly payments to each one of its citizens that’s large enough to afford them their basic life needs. It’s not designed to replace work but rather to supplement it enough to reduce poverty

Art Museums Provide the Stillness Modern Society Desperately Needs

The MET is one of New York’s top tourist draws but to think of the museum as just an attraction is the wrong way to think about it. Of course people from all over the world flock to the MET each year to see its world-class exhibitions, but not everyone goes to see it’s collections. For some, going to the MET is a restorative interlude to the frantic and anxiety inducing nature of city life. That may sound charming, but with more research being discovered about the link between urban environment

In Defense of the Movie Theater

You might have heard that movie theaters had a pretty lousy summer. Many of the big blockbuster films received poor to lukewarm reviews from critics. Theater attendance was down at a loss of $800 Million, making it the worst summer season in 25 years. And to make matters worse, a new monthly subscription service, MoviePass, has created fears that audiences will never going back to paying regular prices for movie tickets once they get accustomed to a new pricing model.

Master of None Is An Ode To The [Older] Millennial Experience

By now you've probably heard about Master of None's superb second season. Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang's long awaited follow-up to 2015's critically acclaimed dramedy continues to be lauded as a show that resonates with a diverse set audiences; and this is specifically so with millennials. I'm one of them and can tell you that out of hundreds of reports and whitepapers written by firms desperately trying to interpret the millennial worldview to brands, this show captures the millennial experience

Moonlight Review

Each year on the road to awards season, there is always one poignant film that is considered an Oscar favorite by everyone but seen by relatively few due to either a limited release or a quiet marketing campaign.  This year, that film is Moonlight and if you haven’t gotten a chance to see it yet you are missing what is quite possibly this year’s best motion picture. The story of Moonlight is actually three stories woven into one that follow the life of Chiron, a gay black man struggling with un

La La Land Review

In 89 years of Academy Awards Ceremonies, La La Land is only the third to achieve 14 nominations.  In light of this, questions are being raised over whether it's deserving of the overwhelming adulation. I’m not a huge fan of musicals, so I wasn’t expecting to be ironically swept up by a film dripping with Hollywood nostalgia in the way many early critics did. When I noticed the backlash against the film’s success, I decided it was the perfect time to go into it. I can tell you that unlike many

Nocturnal Animals Movie Review

I didn’t know what to expect from Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals, since my primary association of him is with expensive clothing that I don’t quite understand are popular.  However, the buzz around the film has been hypnotic for me personally since it’s been compared to the surrealistic dreamscapes of the David Lynch style of filmmaking. I purposely avoided as much exposure to this film as I could to maximize the experience of being dropped into a story I didn’t know much about other than being t

Manchester by the Sea Review

In Manchester By the Sea, for many it’s a rousing introduction to two underrated individuals that have been in film for a long time but have always seemed to be off peoples’ radar: Casey Affleck and Writer/Director Kenneth Lonergan. Underrated is a term that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to describing actors and directors, but the emotional forces of this film are so powerful that it elevates both of them to permanency on the so called “A list”.  As hollow as that sounds, this is a goo

Reflections on Prince

My Dad is as grizzled & old school as they come. The type of dad that would watch a full 9 innings of Mets baseball back when they were a pitiful losing team, and the type of dad who’s ears almost physically close when “that loud rap music” is playing. Like a lot of dads, the only thing he loves more than his family and beloved Mets is his surround sound stereo system. Naturally, he has procured a wide range of DVDs and Vinyl Records to supplement his media center. Oddly as part of his collecti

To merely observe your culture without contributing to it seems very close to existing as a ghost.

Chuck Palahniuk

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