Jul
21
Notes on Our Tasteless Era
Recent journalism, criticism, and social media posts suggest a surge in bad taste across art, fashion, and media. What does
7 min read
Latest
Jun
23
Vanilla, Peaches, and All the Other Lesser Smells
The scientific search for fundamental human taste preferences is commendable but our "evolutionary instincts" can't explain the full complexity of
4 min read
Jun
08
The Sociology of John Mayer’s Outfit Guidance
John Mayer's "point-system" for balanced creative dress reveals a few key
realities about how culture works
Guitarist and songwriter John
4 min read
May
26
Future Sounds: Cheap Gear and Easy Samples
Does the democratization of electronic music tools change how we hear the
sounds?
Like many others in the late 1990s,
5 min read
May
11
Art versus commerce in the NFT Era
With no more "art for art's sake" nor "selling out," we have landed upon a new
resolution in the long
5 min read
Apr
28
Notes on The Nineties
Thoughts on Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties: A Book and the lived experience of
the Nineties, a particular decade
I. Remembering
6 min read
Apr
01
What is Culture? Part Seven: Summary and Bibliography
Wrapping everything up, with a few clarifications and some suggestions for
further reading
We started with a near-impossible mission: Define
3 min read
Mar
15
What is Culture? Part Six: Defining cultural phenomena
If everything in culture is made of conventions, we should be able to explain
all cultural phenomena in terms of
4 min read
Mar
11
What is Culture? Part Five: A web of meanings and values
Conventions explain why we follow the same regular behaviors in our community,
but they also explain how groups agree on
3 min read
Mar
08
What is Culture? Part Four: Conventions
If culture describes the arbitrary aspects of life, conventions explain why
communities repeatedly make the same arbitrary choices over so
5 min read