Tag Archives: mythology

between which worlds?

Posted on by October 31, 2012
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zeph’s pop culture quiz #47 Between which worlds is the man the depicted hand belongs to travelling?     Just leave a comment with your educated guess—you can ask for additional hints, too. [Leaving a comment is easy; just click the ‘Leave a comment’ at the end of the post and fill in the form. If it’s the first time you post a comment, it will be held for moderation. But I am constantly checking, and once I’ve approved a comment, your next ones won’t be held, but published immediately by the system.] UPDATE and solution (31 October 2012): This … Continue reading →

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magic kingdom pilgrimage

Posted on by March 30, 2012
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[abstract:] This essay explores the proposition that Walt Disney World is an amusement park whose form is borrowed from the pilgrimage center. Bateson, Norbeck, and Turner have shown that play and ritual together comprise a metaprocess of expressive behavior rooted in our mammalian past. Substantively both traditional pilgrimage centers, especially Mecca, and Walt Disney World are analyzed in terms of shared activities, symbols displayed, myths evoked, and tripartite time-space processes of rites of passage. The Magic Kingdom is shown to be a giant limen ritual threshold, which symbolically replicates the baroque capital. To go there is to engage in transcendent … Continue reading →

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strange apparition

Posted on by March 22, 2012
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As I’ve ↵said before, I am totally opposed to the idea of using a sealed off portion of Gotham as a prison cum asylum. So I decided to give a press conference at Arkham City’s entrance area. Despite the press and TV news cameras, including anchorwoman Vicky Vale, being present, the mercenaries of Tyger Security grab me, knock me unconscious, and drag me away.  Next thing I remember is being tied to a chair, getting slapped, fainting again and again, the occurences coming to me as memory flashbacks. It’s ↵Hugo Strange standing in front of me. On his orders the … Continue reading →

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entering arkham city

Posted on by March 18, 2012
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After a careful clean reinstall finally I am able to immerse into the ↑Batman‘s mythic universe. A bunch of goons inside a slightly decaying 19th century room. By the masks they wear you can tell that they are ↑Two-Face‘s henchmen. He makes them resemble himself. Chattering away they search the room and find a wall-safe hidden behind a painting. That’s the moment when they get disturbed from above. Fear of the Batman immediately fills them.  But it’s not the dark knight’s skin I get to slip into first—it’s ↑Catwoman‘s instead. Her appearance soothed me, I have to confess. Despite the … Continue reading →

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nazgûl of armonk

Posted on by December 6, 2011
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I was startled to hear the thundering of hooves. Having lived near Armonk, NY all my life, I had never heard such a sound before.     “What is that horrible sound?”     “That is the sound of the Black Steeds riding west from Armonk.”     “The Black Steeds?”     “The ↑Nazgul. They once were men. Now they are neither dead nor alive.     They are IBM’s attorneys.” comment at slashdot … Continue reading →

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ethnicity online

Posted on by March 1, 2011
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Having read on ‘quasi kinship’ (Brown 1989), on the forming of transnational communities on ethnical basis (Glick Schiller, Basch & Szanton Blanc 1995) and the problem of ethnicity in anthropology (Cohen 1978) led me to the question: what about the common myth of origin within the MP-modding community? What was the primordial mythical time? Some esotericism: MP-gamespace is the primordial time, which can always be accessed, is potentially omnipresent. BROWN, DAVID. 1989. Ethnic revival: Perspectives on State and Society. Third World Quarterly 11(4)1-17. COHEN, RONALD. 1978. Ethnicity: Problem and focus in anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 7:379-403. GLICK SCHILLER, NINA, … Continue reading →

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the new gods

Posted on by September 30, 2011
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Having returned from the last LAN-party (the Fighternight 6) — where I again was fragged big time. Lucky me that we didn’t play one second of Counter Strike (CS) ;) — I am very much into Quake 3 Arena (Q3A) again. At the LAN someone had a movie of some Q3A grand champion doing incredible jumps, stunts, and tricks. If, following Harold Schechter, the comicbook superheroes are the new gods (Schechter 1980), they meanwhile have evolved into computergame characters. And among this breed there is an absolute upper class, the creme of the Pantheon, if you wish: the hardcore champion … Continue reading →

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