Arthur Miller “The theater is so endlessly fascinating because it's so accidental. It's so much like life” – Arthur Miller When I think of Arthur Miller I cannot help but think of the harsh realism he portrays in his plays. Nowhere is this more evident than in Death of A Salesmen, a stark look at a decaying family through the eyes of an increasingly cruel and mentally unstable man—Willy Loman. Willy is a senile old salesman, failing in his work, alienating his family, and slipping in and out...

  Golden Exits Golden Exits is a confused film, not in plot but also in its execution. As a viewer you don’t get the sense of a three-act structure, but more of a day-to-day travel log that starts abruptly and ends just as suddenly. It revolves around a young Australian girl named Naomi (played by Emily Browning) as she moves to New York for the summer to work as archivist for a married man named Nick (played, interestingly enough by Ad Rock of the Beastie Boys) whose advances toward her make...

Vicissitudes Pondering over the stories of The Iliad, Burial at Thebes, and The Epic of Gilgamesh I was reminded of a quote by author Lemony Snicket: “Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don't always like” (Horseradish). Lemony may be living centuries apart from the likes of Socrates and Homer, but his words ring true. Despite being incredible, larger-than-life characters, the lead characters of these three...

Aura Walter Benjamin’s “A Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” is a philosophical text that explores the downfall of art due to the age of mass reproduction in which we live. Benjamin classifies art that is original, which exists only as a single whole with no copies, as having an “aura” -- a vague atmospheric quality that makes it special. When paintings, text, and all other works of art are reproduced into perfect copies, the object in question loses this “aura” and is now...

Ignorance is Bliss In the latter end of the 3rd century BC, Solomon, King of Israel wrote down his philosophy on the meaning of life,   “…And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind. Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.” (New American Standard Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:17-18).   Agree or disagree, the above statement holds truth in regards to the passages explored thus...

Dracula "Das Unheimliche" A saying by Alfred Hitchcock perfectly encapsulates the book, this book: "There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it," Dracula forgoes copious action for atmosphere and tension. It is a tale told through subtlety, and a strong pacing that weaves a powerful narrative that is light on morals. Unlike lesser horror stories, Dracula does not commit the cardinal sin of merely introducing the Count as a suave, debonair, gentleman, and then suddenly reveal...

"Cyrano de Bergerac" is a biographical tragicomedy of sorts, by Edmond Rostand written in 1897, loosely based on the real life poet of the same name. It played at the Folsom Lake College Performing Arts Center for one night only on March 21st 2013 where I viewed it. It's important to note that I am a fan of Edmond Rostand's work and the theatre troupe Aquila. So going in I expected a good performance, what I didn't expect was to experience the rare pleasure of getting completely absorbed in a...

Finite Episodic in nature, The Martian Chronicles features twenty-eight thinly connected vignettes that Ray Bradbury described as "a book of stories pretending to be a novel". The Martians play very small roles, and as characters they are quite forgettable. Portrayed neither as heroes, nor villains, the aliens have a finite essentiality to the plot and when they supposedly die-out the story merely continues without looking back, which reinforces the book's notion that no matter how...

A Princess of Mars is a formulaic science fiction romance that chronicles the journey of civil war veteran John Carter to the planet of Mars, where he becomes immersed in an interspecies conflict. Readers might interpret the Barsoom series as a commentary on 18th century western culture, specifically focusing on the troubled relationship between Native American Indians and American-European Settlers. However, in the words of Edgar Rice Burroughs, "No fiction is worth reading except for...