With a plethora of fantasy appearing on streaming services, we take a look back at Adrian Daub’s essay on world-building maps.
Adrian Daub
Posted inStory
But Who Tells Them What To Sing?
“And thus another Hollywood tradition was born: film choruses belting out perfectly nonsensical prose with utter conviction.”
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Feature, History, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story
All Hail the Rat King
From Martin Luther to The Nutcracker, Germany’s original national nightmare was a tangled knot of writhing rats.
Posted inCurrent Events, Essays & Criticism, History, Nonfiction, Science & Nature, Story
The Return of the Face
Physiognomy is a discarded 19th-century pseudoscience. Why can’t we stop practicing it?
Posted inHighlight, History, Nonfiction, Quotes
“99 Luftballons” and the Grim Fairy Tales of ’80s West Germany
On storytelling in the shadow of Chernobyl, U.S. military planes, and not-so-distant German history.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Children of ‘The Cloud’ and Major Tom: Growing Up in the ’80s Under the German Sky
“In the sky you could watch history happen as though on the world’s most massive TV, and history’s wreckage could rain down on you at the park with your friends.”
Posted inNonfiction, Story
Here at the End of All Things
On losing oneself in the geography of fantasy worlds, from Middle Earth to Westeros.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
But What’s IT All About?: How We Forgot the Murderous Clown
Adrian Daub’s fascinating essay in the LA Review of Books on the Stephen King classic IT — now 30 years old — reveals that the real horror of IT wasn’t Pennywise the supernatural clown, but our own, entirely human ability to forget the horrors of the past.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Where “It” Was: Rereading Stephen King’s “It” on Its 30th Anniversary
Was It really about a murderous clown, or was it about our ability to forget the horrors of the past?
Posted inNonfiction, Story
The Broken Pop of James Bond Songs
What can the endurance of the messy, campy canon of James Bond theme songs tell us about contemporary popular music?