The Literal Coney Island of the Mind

“Dreamland” is an amazing concept for an amusement park attraction based on literal interpretations of Freud’s theories. I’m learning about this from Zoe Beloff‘s exhibition at Coney Island museum (running till July 2010): The Coney Island Amateur Psychoanalytic Society and Its Circle, 1926-72. I’m ordering the book that covers the history of this fascinating group,… Continue reading The Literal Coney Island of the Mind

Irony and The Return of the Repressed

“The unconscious is very serious today — even a little bit sad — because we repress serious things into it: sex, death, libido, desire. But if it were irony and off-handedness which were repressed, what form would the new unconscious take then? It would become ironic; we would have ironic, breezy drives and fantasies, which… Continue reading Irony and The Return of the Repressed

Bread that Talks

Obviously, no one believes bread can talk. But Schwebel’s ‘taliano — “The Bread with the Foreign Accent” — would like us to believe its Italian bread has an identity so Italian that it can speak to us.  I used this example in my recent lecture at the Alpha Science Fiction & Fantasy Workshop for Young… Continue reading Bread that Talks