HAMLET, THE ANTI-MAN: ANTI-LIFE HAMLET

In this second segment of his series of podcasts on "Hamlet," Andy Nowicki reflects upon the surpassingly bleak central message of Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy, footnoting his remarks with useful references to Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and the 80s teen suicide comedy "Heathers."

https://soundcloud.com/jnow1101/hamlet-the-anti-man-anti-life-hamlet

THE JEW OF WALL STREET

by Andy Nowicki

Martin Scorsese’s sordid, obscene, spiritedly profane, and epically hilarious new film The Wolf of Wall Street is an unflinching depiction of unfettered greed and unrestrained sleaze amongst the ethically challenged and the morally retarded. Yet as comprehensive a catalogue of depravity as the movie is (clocking in at a near three-hour running time), there is a significant piece missing. For one reason or another, Scorsese has rendered protagonist Jordan Belfort’s Jewish identity cryptic at best.

SO RUDE

The band MAGIC!, whose song "Rude" currently rules the charts 

by Andy Nowicki

I am no expert on men’s issues, nor can I realistically claim to major in manliness, but still I venture to declare that the success of “Rude,” a song now gaining extensive airplay, unintentionally underscores a prominent crisis in modern-day masculinity.

HAMLET THE ANTI-MAN, INTRODUCTION: ANTIHEROIC HAMLET

In this first segment of Andy Nowicki's "Hamlet" podcast series, Andy grapples with the paradox at the core of Hamlet's appeal: the fact that he is an immaculate rendering of a deeply disillusioned soul, an "antihero" of whom we stand in awe, yet at the same time find confoundingly, endearingly relateable.

https://soundcloud.com/jnow1101/hamlet-the-anti-man-introduction-antiheroic-hamlet

STRAIGHT TALK ON BULLIES

by Andy Nowicki

I have written before about the outrageously hypocritical antics of the anti-bully brigade, whose self-appointed members constantly puff out their chests and pound their proverbial podiums ad infinitum these days, constantly getting in our faces, and all but stealing our lunch money and throwing us into trash cans and slamming us into lockers as they hector and bluster and demand all the while that we need to STOP BULLYING!!!!

Of course, to a large extent, those who denounce “bullying” the loudest don’t really care about bullying qua bullying. For them, the War on Bullies is but a proxy battle, through which they intend to vilify anyone opposed to gay marriage and any type of concerted gay-normalization effort. When such folk speak spitefully of “bullies,” what they mean are “(white) Christian conservatives,” who in their prejudiced perception just can’t be anything but bullies, since they’re so closed-minded and bigoted… (and so very gauchely white, too...)

SPEAKING ART TO POWER

by Andy Nowicki

A while ago, I wrote an article entitled “Alt Right Art,” a sort of mini-manifesto for dissident aesthetic voices who find their scope impaired by the machinations and ministrations of a dully ultra-conformist and punitively small-minded age, an age wherein the once-revolutionary Left has seized hold of nearly all established citadels of thought, its entrenched cultural commissars ruthlessly enforcing their ever more pernicious institutional “innovations” with monotonous fervor and plodding regularity, and in so doing, rendering adherence to embattled traditional mores the only possible means of rebellion, excitement, redemption, and relief.

SOPHIE'S CHOICE

SOPHIE'S CHOICE

Sophie and Hans Scholl, commemorated on a 1961 East German postage stamp.

by Andy Nowicki

On February 22, 1943 – seventy-two years ago – three leaders of the dissident student movement The White Rose were executed by guillotine at the Stadelheim Prison in Munich, Germany.

Twenty-four year old Christoph Probst, 24-year old Hans Scholl, and his sister, 21-year old Sophie Scholl – all students at the University of Munich – were sent to their deaths mere hours after being tried and convicted for treason in what amounted to a show trial, presided over by the ogre-like "hanging judge" and infamous Nazi stooge Roland Freisler. Their "crime" consisted primarily in the fact that they printed up and surreptitiously distributed pamphlets which condemned the war and urged passive resistance to the Hitler regime. At no time did the White Rose movement ever practice or even espouse violence, but they were nevertheless shown no mercy by the totalitarian government they so vigorously opposed in print. Many more arrests and summary executions of other young people belonging to the group were to follow in the weeks and months to come.