In his debut essay collection, Nicholas Belardes uses today s pop culture and self-deprecating humor as a filter for discussing personal stories of family, writing, gender, art, and race. He dives into the Harry Potter play and discusses his cursed childhood home. He tells coming-of-age tales of Dungeons & Dragons and blames Stranger Things for jogging those hilarious memories. In great detail he describes how working for a cheesy Las Vegas animation company meant everything to a relationship with his dad. And he presents an unpopular artistic argument for how Tyrion Lannister of Game of Thrones may have ruined his life as a writer (not really). He gives you Star Wars and its weird connections to the Catcher in the Rye (as well as artistic expectations in education). In an essay about race he presents virtual universes, cowboy images of his racist dad, and odd choices of identity in Ready Player One. He even provides a layman s guide for how to introduce someone to Star Trek while at the same time telling us that what we mimic might not be good for us. He also discusses miscommunication in the world in relation to writing the first original Twitter novel, Small Places. And finally, he describes how American numbness negatively affects the world of art. Belardes presents a side of our humanity working in tandem with pop culture. It isn t always pretty, though it is hopeful, sometimes funny, and full of promise."
In his debut essay collection, Nicholas Belardes uses today s pop culture and self-deprecating humor as a filter for discussing personal stories of family, writing, gender, art, and race. He dives into the Harry Potter play and discusses his cursed childhood home. He tells coming-of-age tales of Dungeons & Dragons and blames Stranger Things for jogging those hilarious memories. In great detail he describes how working for a cheesy Las Vegas animation company meant everything to a relationship with his dad. And he presents an unpopular artistic argument for how Tyrion Lannister of Game of Thrones may have ruined his life as a writer (not really). He gives you Star Wars and its weird connections to the Catcher in the Rye (as well as artistic expectations in education). In an essay about race he presents virtual universes, cowboy images of his racist dad, and odd choices of identity in Ready Player One. He even provides a layman s guide for how to introduce someone to Star Trek while at the same time telling us that what we mimic might not be good for us. He also discusses miscommunication in the world in relation to writing the first original Twitter novel, Small Places. And finally, he describes how American numbness negatively affects the world of art. Belardes presents a side of our humanity working in tandem with pop culture. It isn t always pretty, though it is hopeful, sometimes funny, and full of promise."
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Nicholas Belardes has worked as a writer, screenwriter, even an
animation writer. His
work has been talked about across North America and Europe,
including Wired
Magazine, Coast to Coast A.M., U.K. Guardian, The Telegraph,
Christian Science
Monitor, and countless other newspapers, radio stations and TV
appearances. His work
has appeared in leading news sources like CNN.com, ABC News, even
in American
journals Carve Magazine, Pithead Chapel, The Weeklings, and others.
He’s literally been
exposed to an audience of millions, which includes his social media
projects that not only
went viral more than six years ago but are still being talked about
in major media and
colleges. Bettina Gilois has won the Humanitas Prize, and Black
Reels Best Screenplay for Glory Road. She has written for Jerry
Bruckheimer, and in addition to writing books and screenplays, she
blogs about art and life for the Huffington Post.
“A refreshingly honest love-hate letter to pop culture. Nicholas
Belardes doesn’t try to pretend that our tech and media obsessions
can either be reduced to guilty pleasures or influential icons of
our time. Instead, with sharp and brutal introspection, he delves
into what the shows, movies, novels, politics and tweets that
consume him say about him, and causes us to do the same.” —Natalia
Sylvester, author of Chasing the Sun
“. . . reads like a love letter to pop culture—I couldn’t get
enough. Belardes’ essays are addictive: you finish one and can’t
wait to start the next. The snappy, fast-paced writing uses pop
culture as a lens to look at everything—family, writing, jobs,
gender, and ultimately what it means to be human. I binged on this
book like it was a new season of Game of Thrones.” —Lara Zielin,
author of The Waiting Sky and The Implosion of Aggie Winchester
“Nicholas Belardes has incisively given the world a stellar debut
collection of essays,” —Caroline Leavitt, NYT best-selling author
of Cruel Beautiful World, This is Tomorrow, and Pictures of You
“David Foster Wallace meets Hunter S. Thompson in this ode to the
triumphs and defeats of pop culture. Belardes might be the most
informed, intelligent and hilariously iconoclastic guide we’ll ever
have to help us bridge the digital divide. Who else dares talk
about Dostoevsky in the same breath as Winona Ryder? In Belardes’s
nimble mental meanderings, we find Rilke alongside Sam the Mattress
Man, Knossos alongside Las Vegas. Even as he is telling us
everything we always wanted to know about Holden Caulfield and Luke
Skywalker but were afraid to ask, Belardes’s underlying message
becomes increasingly clear: art has been dumbed down, artifice is
everywhere, and we no longer know what “real” is. “We. Can’t.
Feel.” Belardes says, but he’s no misanthrope, and in these essays,
we find ourselves in the astute and tender company of someone who
loves the world.” —Kim Barnes, author of In the Kingdom of Men
“Many of my favorite books are actually rants. On the Road was
Kerouac’s expression of being “mad to live.” Lord of the Rings was
an elegantly elven diatribe against the tree-killing machines of
war and industry, along with being the best-ever take-down of
Nazis. Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem is a gorgeous
screed of Sixties counterculture. I could go on and that is part of
the point—they DO go on and thank god for that because all ideas
can’t be expressed in 140 characters. Nicholas Belardes rants with
the best of them and Didion better watch her back because he, too,
has culture in his crosshairs. Belardes writes with a sharp eye and
an even sharper pen. Covering cinema, pop obsessions, history and
the not so United States, he is an articulate witness to the
strange, stubborn and intractable truths of our time.” —Brenda
Knight, author of Women of the Beat Generation
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