On July 17th we played at Bluestockings Books in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Here's the ad posted by the venue:

And deliver we did. Whether we freed anyone from the clutches of the Spectacle is yet to be seen...

We really dig the vibe down there, having played downtown at The Kraine Theatre and The Living Theatre a number of times. The space is small but intimate, and Kimmi, Becca, and the the rest of the bookstore's volunteers were helpful and hospitable. Thanks to Malav Kanuga for setting the show up.

The premise of Neil Postman's classic societal critique Amusing Ourselves to Death is that Aldous Huxley's dystyopian vision, as put forth in his book Brave New World, better reflects the reality of modern-day America than does George Orwell's nightmare society depicted in his classic 1984.

The validity of this claim will be the subject of a later blog post, but for now click here for an excellent visual depiction of Postman's take on the difference between Orwell's and Huxley's prophecies. It's produced by an artist named Stuart McMillen.

On July 7th I screened Thus Spoke The Spectacle at Denver Seminary in Littleton, Colorado:

As you can see from the subtitle, a central focus of my presentation was a discussion of the ways in which the ubiquitous elements of spectacle society, our media and technology, tend to obscure, subvert, usurp, and co-opt the genuine human impulse toward the sacred. This is a conversation Mike and I have been having in relation to our show for years, and one that has begun to take shape more tangibly in our post-performance and post-screening discussions - particularly at our Media Ecology Association screening last summer in Santa Clara and performance last month at the Jesuit school St. Louis University.

I therefore welcomed the opportunity to present TSTS at Denver Seminary, brought about by an invitation from philosopher, professor and preacher Douglas Groothuis. Doug and I share many common influences such as Neil Postman, Jacques Ellul, and Lewis Mumford, and our strains of media critique overlap significantly although we don't agree on (nor did we expect to) every aspect of the political ramifications of our analyses. Doug's thoughtful insights following the screening, as well as the thoughtful questions and feedback of his students and other attendees, made the presentation especially gratifying.

As an added bonus Doug gave me one of his many books, Truth Decay: Defending Christianity Against the Challenges of Postmodernism, which I'm finding illuminating and enjoyable. I think that Doug's explanation of postmodernism, and the contrast between its notion of "truth" (quotations insisted upon by the postmodernists themselves) and the traditional conception of Truth, can be valuable to Christians and non-Christians alike. I owe Quote of the Day #47 to Doug's reference to Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and am especially looking forward to the appendix with the Postman-esque title "Television: Agent of Truth Decay".

For more on Doug's philosophy and views, see his blog The Constructive Curmudgeon. It's "curmudgeonly" in the best sense of the word.