Meet the Semionauts
"Between the experiential cunning of the animal and the more self-disciplined and attentive cunning of the man."
Decoding the world of culture, design, and marketing.
Thick Description (Abduction)
How do we identify codes, and in doing so begin to construct a meaning matrix?
Pharmacist vs. Guru
Making sense of how brands, media and culture are responding to COVID-19. (1 of 4)
Personal Product
Gum as an everyday carry — like car keys, or condoms.
Martian Fink Ring
Anyone with five cents could buy one, but I didn’t know that at the time.
Fifties Backlash
"Disney sold him into slavery, and he’s nothing. He's nothing."
Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life
A non-compact topological group of bare-breasted women in G-strings.
People Food
Pet food presented in people-food contexts.
Spindle Whorl
One of the first machines invented and used primarily by women.
Disney Co. Mascot
"He’s so much of an institution that we’re limited in what we can do with him."
The African Queen
How to survive not war, but peace, with one’s humanity intact?
Thick Description (Deduction)
How do we identify paradigms and thematic complexes?
Stay Home
“Staying home saves lives”
Peanuts Paperback
A mysterious relic created by routine, familiarity, and sentimentality.
Forties Backlash
"A degenerate 'middlebrow' horror, mass-produced for profit."
The Diary of a Chambermaid
Comical yet not funny, equal-opportunity in its portrayal of human folly, artificial in the extreme.