Barbarism, the natural state of mankind?
Month: February 2016
A Catcher in the Pictish Wilderness
Most people are aware of Robert E. Howard through his character Conan the Cimmerian, even if they don't know the author's name. When I was young I was obsessed with learning about the hidden recesses of popular culture like other kids were about professional sports. It was a way out of the morass of public …
Captain America’s Boise Tea Party
This is an updated version of a blog published earlier on Daily Kos and a talk given to the Anthropology Department Colloquium at Idaho State University. The truth is stranger (or at least uglier) than fiction. This is as true in the Intermountain West of Idaho and Utah as anywhere else. If you doubt it, see …
Multimedia Barbarian – a video
https://youtu.be/EK3y9KsLAuY This is part 1 of 2 of a YouTube video about REH's Conan, that attempts to unpack the history of the character's meteoric rise in popular culture in the 1970s and 1980s. I'll post part 2 later after some editing. Part 2 is less of a love letter about the comics and the times, …
Whispered in Stygia 