One Mouse, Two Cups?

On January 1, 2019, original works from 1923 will move into the public domain. This batch will be the first new public domain works in over 20 years. Mickey Mouse was born via Steamboat Willie in 1928. That means that, barring further Disney intervention, in 2024, the Mouse can become…anything. I, for one, am keen … Read more

Passing the buck

Shame is now both global and permanent, to a degree ­unprecedented in human history. No more moving to the next town to escape your bad name. However far you go and however long you wait, your disgrace is only ever a Google search away. Getting a humiliating story into the papers used to require convincing … Read more

Hope me, Agatha.

The elements of Christie’s fiction are all already in place: a country house, a finite list of suspects, the outsider detective intruding into a place of order and hierarchy that has been disrupted by a crime. The world of Christie’s books is something like the ‘imaginary’ as described by Cornelius Castoriadis, a mental representation in … Read more

Interest index

Create a list of everything you’re interested in, ever, here. All of it. Sea mammals Global politics Linguistics Micro-timing and latency adjustment Evolution as a heuristic for other things Cultural influence on story-telling See also, folk stories Crimes and how they’re solved Religion Mythology