1. Don’t strive for originality; don’t fret over what’s fashionable.

2. Envy will be your most lasting, most reliable, and most fulfilling relationship.

2b. It helps to know the difference between envy (coveting something you lack) and jealousy (clinging to something you possess).

3. No intellectual is happy. I would go so far as to advocate against ever being so. But an intellectual will be less prone to misery if they know their convictions and take them seriously.

4. Convictions are discovered in two ways. (1) Writing an issue, a policy, or a creed down on a piece of paper and debating its merits before a mirror. …

In the late-1970s, horror cinema began making what I call the Lovecraft pivot. H.P. Lovecraft was not unknown to the previous era of horror, but the difficulties of his work — technically and thematically — gave him marginal placing beside his idol Edgar Allan Poe and his protégé Robert Bloch. Only a sliver of his already small body of work was adapted — The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and “The Dunwich Horror” by Roger Corman, for instance, and “Cool Air” for an episode of Night Gallery.

This changed as more prestige directors attempted science fiction, which inevitably led to experiments in horror-sci-fi hybrids. This being Lovecraft’s signal literary contribution, his more radical ideas were now fair game. In due course, quite like a contagion, the resulting hybrids acquired both Lovecraft’s impenetrable aesthetic and his amoral philosophy. Humanity was ever under threat by extraterrestrial invaders, but ones that were far removed from our concerns and limitations, with little commonality or interest in us specifically, and unburdened by culture, ethics, or any higher motivating factor than survival. This dynamic was better insofar as it seemed more realistic. The notion that aliens were “like us” or that our principles and spirit would carry the day against them were naïve conceits best left in the 1950s. And because experiments like Alien and The Thing were wildly successful, this attitude prevailed to the point of becoming conventional wisdom. …

The 1984 film Breakin’ tells the story of Kelly Bennett (Lucinda Dickey), a privileged California teen with a passion for dance. Growing disillusioned with her more traditional background, Bennett falls in with Ozone (Adolfo “Shabba Doo” Quiñones) and Turbo (Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers) who specialize in less formal, rawer, and more urban street dancing. The film follows the three characters as they deal with the challenges of their respective worlds while also overcoming the conflicts that arise between their racial, class, and technical backgrounds to form their own successful dance team. …

In the 1980s, the longest and coldest of cold wars, that of adults against children, entered into a new and warmer phase. Before that time, it was waged beneath a veil of complacency. The “fronts” on which the “battles” were contested had an uneven advantage. The emergence in the postwar era of “popular culture” and “adolescence” created a youth consumer market that allowed people of college age and younger some sway in the direction of public taste and character. This was no threat to the adult authority, because it was a dominion of it. Narrow mediums through which to experience this new culture did little to fundamentally tilt the social balance. …

For as long as I’ve been culturally aware, I’ve heard about this or that anomalous cultural event as being the “new punk.” It is a testament to punk’s own endurance that this usage is almost never derogatory. But that it is not derogatory probably makes the ensuing and usually one-sided debate over whether or not this new punk qualifies as such, let alone what punk is, all the more acrimonious. It’s a shame because the answer is both unchanging and uncomplicated: it doesn’t. …

I wrote three years ago that horror was having a bit of a moment. It had always been popular, but taken seriously only in fits and starts. That changed in the middle of the last decade when studios like Blumhouse and A24 started taking risks on ambitious and nuanced but still scary “prestige” horror films that paid off in sales, in critical acclaim, and (selectively) in awards season. Two years later I also noted that trends tend to bottom out after a certain period. …

The fear of a Bernie Sanders nomination, let alone a Bernie Sanders administration, came as all the deepest fears do, suddenly and sharply. It didn’t seem long ago — who am I kidding, it feels like a fucking century ago — that the Democratic Party was warily content to tolerate his reentry into a presidential race. “What could go wrong?” Democrats gritted to each other. “He’s pushing 80, Elizabeth Warren has none of the establishment baggage of Hillary. And then there’s always Kamala, Cory, or even Mayo(r) Pete, right? …

The first show the Germs played was at Hollywood’s Orpheum Theater in April of 1977. They were to open for the nascent Weirdoes, who picked the Germs because they were even more nascent, having only just formed that month with no rehearsals, no songs, and no knowledge of their instruments. Their set lasted 10 minutes before they were removed from the stage. The band, with guitarist Pat Smear, bassist Lorna Doom, and drummer Donna Rhia, blared feedback at the audience (which included The Damned) while singer Darby Crash wrapped himself in licorice whips, that soon melted, and slathered himself in salad dressing and peanut butter on top of that. …