Better Art

To Save the West, Make Better Art

By now anyone who's not trapped in an epistemic closure bubble is aware of two facts: The West is caught in a death spiral toward a new Dark Age Voting harder won't pull us out of it. Yet despite the severity of the crisis, nothing is being done about it…
November 21, 202310 Comments
Foundation Father

Foundation Father

My whirlwind tour of the newpub podcast scene continues as I stop by to chat with M.A. Franklin on his Foundation Father Twitter Space. He's an up-and-coming newpub author who's Kickstarting a children's book, and he's good people. Listen as we discuss newpub, Neopatronage, and the Witch Test. Catch the…
November 15, 2023
RetroStream

On the RetroStream

The Burned Book has reached Stretch Goal 4! Choose from several sweet perks and get your backers-only invite to the author reading livestream! Pledge now. A conspicuous feature of post-WWII pop culture is that every generation that came up during the postwar boom times adopted its own language based on…
November 9, 2023
Euchaistic Procession

Eucharistic Revival

Criticizing the hierarchy is a favorite pastime of trad Catholics. And in strict  justice, many prelates could use some filial correction. But credit where credit is due: American bishops are turning the Eucharistic crisis around. A new study shows that almost two-thirds of adult Catholics in the United States believe…
October 4, 202321 Comments
Western RPG

West vs West

Here at this blog, we're inclined to frame the crisis facing the West as a spiritual battle between Christendom and the totalizing Death Cult seeking to destroy it. But just yesterday, a reader pointed me to a post that examines our civilizational decline through the lens of video RPGs, which…
September 26, 202315 Comments
surrogate hamster

Surrogate Activities

A video posted last month by a mid-sized video game review channel issued a scathing indictment of current AAA gaming. It's worth a watch, despite some crude language. Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8jC2KT481c The immediate reaction from anyone with the least bit of awareness is "He's right! Video games suck now!"…
September 20, 202319 Comments
Woke Soyjak

Woke Is the New Racist

Come one, come all to the ongoing tug-of-war between two Boomer memes! The prize? 2/3 of US consumer dollars. Politicians and businesses cower in fear of being accused of racism. As we saw during the George Floyd riots, a racism charge is perceived to be so serious that many businesses…
August 25, 20239 Comments
Iron Age

Dawn of the Iron Age

Yesterday's post on the Death Cult's conquest of pop culture occasioned much comment about where indie creators - in particular newpub authors - go next. A common refrain among the commentariat invoked a burgeoning new counterculture movement, the Iron Age. The rise of another online campaign to counter corporate skinsuit…
August 8, 20232 Comments
Pop Cult Hipster

Shades of the Pop Cult

The "I f***ing love science!" crowd gets short shrift around here, but one of their favorite boutique mantras may have some truth behind it. Time does indeed seem like it must be subjective sometimes. Case in point: It's now been ten years since the consumer revolts of the 2010s promised…
August 7, 202311 Comments
strong female character

Decoding the Amazon

Author J. Ishiro Finney decodes the Strong Female Character™ trope in his new book Boobs of Steel: Decoding the Amazon. Lara Croft... Power Girl... Tifa Lockhart... They're three of the most loved and loathed characters in all pop-culture. Since the late 1990s all three have also been favorite targets for…
July 31, 20233 Comments