Origin of the Pogo
The role of anthropologists is to interpret the guiding symbols of each culture.
Josh Glenn
Josh Glenn is a Boston- and Kingston (NY)-based consulting semiotician. He is cofounder of the consultancy Semiovox, editor of the websites SEMIOVOX and HILOBROW, and founding editor of The MIT Press's proto-sf RADIUM AGE series. He is an adjunct instructor at RISD and convenor of the monthly online Semiofest Sessions. His books include The Idler's Glossary, Significant Objects, and the family activities guide Unbored. In the ’90s, Josh published the intellectual zine/journal Hermenaut; in the 2000s, he was a founding staffer and columnist for the Boston Globe's IDEAS section.
Caddyshack Codes
An interlocking mandala of paradigms and thematic complexes.
The Asphalt Jungle
The least understood aspect of the human psyche is the ego.
And We Lived Beneath the Waves
Psychedelic revelations about the artificial nature of reality.
Gone With the Wind
Bodies will be stacked together on battlefields like so much cordwood.
Code-X (Intro)
What are the implicit assumptions (or “mythologies”) we’ve absorbed?
Tequila Release
Shedding inhibitions, going a little wild, having good stories to tell.
Beach Party
The moment at which the Anti-Anti-Utopian Generation grows up.
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Pure Hitchcock: tragic and comic at precisely the same instant.
Les Valseuses
Half-wild denizens of “la zone” on the outskirts of a large town.
The Thirty-Nine Steps
Sexy, thrilling, and — thanks to the sandwiches — very British indeed.
Blade Runner
Viewers never question Deckard’s humanity… except, perhaps, during this scene.
Apocalypse Now
In the existential jungle, empathy makes a man fitter for survival. But at what price?
The Fifth Element
Leeloo's strength is also her weakness.