Click here to read the full review – Fame: What The Classics Tell Us About Our Cult of Celebrity (A.V. Club Review) Excerpt: “[...] Fame isn’t a simple reduction of modern celebrity culture to we’ve-seen-this-before status, or a cheap attempt to fuse philosophy to the flavor of the month. Payne’s questions and answers have a distinctly [...]
Tom Payne has a new piece up in The Wall Street Journal‘s Speakeasy blog: “Why Cicero Would Have Loved Kim Kardashian” Previously: Tom Payne is interviewed in Publishers Weekly. Click to read “The Fame Monster” In the same issue, Fame gets a rave review: “Erudite and vastly entertaining… A charming, contrarian, and very witty look at how our stargazing can [...]
Tom Payne is interviewed in Publishers Weekly. Click to read “The Fame Monster” In the same issue, Fame gets a rave review: “Erudite and vastly entertaining… A charming, contrarian, and very witty look at how our stargazing can be ‘something that bonds us, and which expresses something about how our civilization works.’” And, if you missed [...]
Want a Fame galley before it goes on sale October 26th? Like Popcropolis on Facebook and post a comment on the wall — first 15 will get one!* Praise for Fame: “Accounts of celebrities are usually either sneering or gushing––or both simultaneously, those attitudes being two sides of the same coin. Tom Payne’s wonderfully witty [...]
Ever since the episode with the meat, I’ve been leafing through the papers, and thinking that if there’s not a picture of Lady Gaga immediately to hand, then something’s wrong. Perhaps, for a moment, there’s been a lull in the debate about whether or not she’s a feminist icon, or maybe something else world-changing has [...]
I think the ancients would have been kinder about a fellow who takes his name from a part of his body. (Literature students should note that for “The Situation” to share his sobriquet with his pecs and abs is a useful example of synecdoche, and gives you a chance to mention Jersey Shore in your [...]
What is the Latin for Guido? It’s Gaius, surely; and Gaia for Guidette. Just enjoy the gravitas for a moment. Beyond that, it’s hard to think of what the Romans would make of Jersey Shore. Hmm. Cicero didn’t like women getting drunk – he thought it made them look rustic. Ovid on the other hand [...]
A great non-headline that appeared recently: Bill Cosby is not dead. It’s such a great non-headline that it’s been used four times now. You can see how this would be annoying. You’d have thought it would have been a buzz to read all about yourself and your wonderful achievements, to have some gauge on just [...]
A delight of the Internet is that you can make contact with other worlds without ever having actually to visit them. Imagine that stock plot of antiquity, the tale of the disguised ruler.
I’m enjoying the way the editors of America’s Got Talent slice up their footage. When the auditions came to Florida, the montages gave us (a) people hoping to profess talent announcing themselves to the jury and (b) shots of the crowd booing them off. We were often spared the actual act. And how the crowd [...]
