The Irish Times published an article by Prof Orla Muldoon of the University of Limerick, where she argues that watching sport could be a ‘social curse’ during lockdown. There are two linked threads in the piece, the first — that the risk of loss in a game is a driver of negative thoughts — is tenuously bolted onto the second — that in the absence of sporting ‘camaraderie’ the negative impacts of spectator sport’s attendant alcohol consumption and gambling will be amplified.
Let’s examine these in turn. It seems almost too obvious to mention that people feel bad after their…
The Easter Egg is the defining cultural point of modern media. It is the reduction of everything — all expression, occurrences and ideas — into a single granular entity. And these granular entities can be exchanged for capital; either social capital or actual capital. And in an age of influencers and ‘clout’, social capital is more liquid than it has ever been.
In the aftermath of the release of Childish Gambino’s This Is America, every social media platform became flooded with ‘Easter Egg’ analysis. Every frame was analysed and individual pieces of meaning imparted. That was perhaps the moment when…
Ben Arlacher was born to make music. And in 1971, in Austin, Texas, it seemed like as good a place as any to make music. Not money, but music.
But, collaborating with companies providing background jingles to be piped into shopping malls and offices, a working musician could make a living — while preserving his capacity to create.
“I got my start working with Rhythmatica in Austin,” Arlacher wrote on the message board ‘bleeps’ in 1994. “An alliance with these sort of companies offered musicians an opportunity to create music. …
“At the stall of a company called Softbank Robotics, a Frenchman was attempting to convince a four-foot humanoid to hug a three-year-old girl.
“Pepper,” he said. “Please hug the little girl.”
“I’m sorry,” said Pepper, in an appealingly childlike voice lightly inflected with a Japanese accent and genuine regret. “I didn’t understand.”
“Pepper,” said the Frenchman, with elaborate clarity and forbearance. “Can you please give this little girl a hug.”
The little girl in question, who was sullen and silent and clutching the leg of her father, did not look much like she wanted Pepper to give her a hug.
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david hartery
sub-editor, writer, journalist.
