Kafka was painfully earnest, in all moods, but never as intensely as in defense of himself. Not his looks, his sense of masculinity, but the defense against his right to existence, and each time one of his stand-ins dies, he’s letting these personalities, so vividly abstracted allegories, become a way of accepting judgment of himself. […]
Brandon K. Nobles
How to Create Conspiracy (Reason, Rhetoric, and the Art of Persuasion) 16 June 2016
The Language of Argumentative Reasoning & Rhetoric and the Language of Persuasion In the proper use of rhetoric, an early idea or notion in a speech or argument must be resolved by the end. This can be done by returning to, and expanding upon, prior notions in an argument toward the end. This tidies up […]
Protected: When Water Catches Fire, 2 draft
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Literary essay: Shakespeare – Choice & Fate, Fathers & Sons, 15 May 2016
9 On Shakespeare’s Drama, Choice & Fate, Fathers & Sons SHAKESPEARE’S PLAYS ARE ALL INTRINSICALLY Shakespeare plays; yet with MacBeth, Shakespeare taps into a deeper madness, a madness rarely pulled off with lucidity in literary history. Shakespeare unravels MacBeth in much the same manner as he did with King Lear. Piece by piece the layers shed, layer after […]
A Critique of Criticism, 12 May 2016
A look at the varying methods of literary criticism In popular criticism, a critic may give a paragraph or so his attention as an initial reaction, to get the reader to see his perspective and set the tone, jot down something in the night to summarize it all, and post a review online sometime the […]
Why Art Matters, 10 May 2016
This brief essay is a response to a question I get a lot, most often from young men and women just starting college, but a question I feel is worth dedicating some time to: Why does art matter? Think for a moment about the world around you. Your immediate surroundings. A chair, a monitor, a […]
From The November Letters: Academia, philosophy, and subjectivity
1 Philosophy & academia Despite my education or what my writing may suggest, I am not a philosopher. I have more in common with the prolific serial writers of Astounding Fiction! than I do with a traditional philosophers like Immanuel Kant or Rene Descartes. I feel that I must point this out, as there is, […]
Religion, Freedom, Fear & Panic (George Orwell) – 17 March 2016
A look at the cult of personality, the cult of fear, and the spiritual liberation of art. A cultural anthropological essay on religion, freedom, fear, and paranoia.
History and Conspiracy, Jacopo’s Pocket Watch – 6 January 2016
THE GREAT ABRAHAM LINCOLN POCKET WATCH CONSPIRACY By Jacopo della Quercia ***** BY LOOKING THROUGH THE LENS OF CONSPIRACY, WE AFFORD ourselves an illusion, an illusion of possibility, prediction, and control. Casting the horrors and intrigue of history in the light of conspiracy is a comfort, and to wield these elements so cleverly, as Jacopo della Quercia does in this novel, […]
Short – The Obituary Writer, 31 December 2015
1 Obituaries for the Living My first paying job out of college was writing a sports column for the town newspaper, a town of less than a thousand people, Isla Wor. The games didn’t matter, not really, but having something to cheer for, something to look forward to, that brought us all together. And when […]
‘The Obituary Writer’ first draft, 11 September 2015
THE OBITUARY WRITER Copyright © 2015 BRANDON K. NOBLES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED I Death in Isla Wor My first paying job after finishing school was writing a sports column for the town newspaper, a town of less than a thousand people, Isla Wor. The games were of no consequence in the world but […]
The Public Face of Fireflies (A Farce) 18 November 2015
THE PUBLIC FACE OF FIREFLIES: By BRANDON K. NOBLES ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 1 Mrs. Martha Herington MY FATHER WAS AN ARCHITECT, AND HE THOUGHT LIKE one. He was of the Bernini, Borromini school of thought, working out the higher geometry, making walls bend and breathe and carry you to the more elaborate façade. […]
Picasso VS Nazis
Pablo Picasso might be best known in the Western world as that artist who painted shit that could obviously be done by children. Yet in his time, he was an absolute revolutionary, painting in manner radically different from that of his dainty-impressionist contemporaries and even inventing a new style of art, predating the Lego movie by what […]
Hawthorne & the Cult of Judgment
In the Scarlet Letter, Hester Prim has a daughter out of wedlock, Pearl. “For Peril~” And for the Puritan society, for that culture, this is a sin. They were too civilized to burn her at the stake and kill her, they wanted to kill her and make her live with it. So they burned her […]
The Silent Circle, short story – 2 November 2015
There are times in life when all you can do is walk. Arriving home, that’s all that I could do. Just walk, just think, watching ants crawl over the stones that led to the porch. Thinking leads to nothing but trouble and I felt that trouble coming on when I found Bullet asleep in front […]
