Recent Work
- rethinking education in the ai age Superintelligence calls into question what schooling is for and makes humanistic answers more relevant.
- On Prompting and Prompts How language models shape curiosity and attention.
- Clive and Worm in Winter Memoir reflecting a year of crisis abroad. Isolation, transgression, unlikely paths to self-discovery.
- An Anatomy of AI Criticism The promise—and revealing glitches—of ‘large language models’, based on a collaborative book-writing experiment with an AI.
- Emails to Danny Lyrical prose piece, presented as a series of fragmented emails.
- Rap and the American Religion American evangelicalism as key to understanding the persona, contradictions and power of a major female rapper.
- No Special Place: on having a famous brother Memory, digital celebrity and political idealism, framed by the experience of having a brother who becomes an influencer.
Films
- The Philosophy of Dress A troubled designer and her magnetic influencer-muse collaborate on a single dress, but their artistic bond unravels into toxic obsession. Wrote and produced. Feature film starring Sydney Lemmon, Romy Reiner, Jake Weary, Clara McGregor, Eric Roberts.
- TIGER TIGER A couple takes an interest in a strange new neighbor, only to find out he's already taken an interest in them. Surreal short film about babies, tigers, rap and Connecticut starring Sydney Lemmon and Jonathan Higginbotham. Co-wrote and produced.
Earlier WORK
- Online Ideas: essays Collection of essays, co-authored with Hugo Blondel. On pop culture, politics and theology during the pandemic era.
- Group: an anthology Editor. Anthology of writing and images by seven friends. Originally published in weekly volumes throughout 2020.
- The Pop Reformation How three popstars leveraged streaming releases to assert economic and creative autonomy, echoing the disruptive power of the printing press. Included in American Music (Vol. 35, No. 4) for its value in teaching public musicology.
- 'Joanne', Anti-pop pop and the 2016 Election Parallels between the anti-establishment rhetoric of Lady Gaga and Donald Trump.
- The Granny Awards The Grammys, Kanye West and the Internet's dismantling of music's old institutional center. Pop culture's fragmentation as a form of democratic flourishing.
- "you have distracted me from my creative process" On the birth of Kim and Kanye’s son and the paradox of modern celebrity. Rap and reality TV as a contentless yet honest theater of striving.
- Marilynne Robinson's 'The Givenness of Things' Review of the essay collection. See also this 2012 Letter to the Editor (-:
- Two Versions of the American Dilemma Hart Crane's "The Bridge" and Henry James' The Europeans.
- In Remembrance of Dottie Ray Profile of the longtime Iowa City broadcaster.
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SELECTED reviews
David Harrower's 'Knives in Hens'; Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town'; Jackie Sibblies Drury's 'Really'; Walker Sampson's 'Slouch'; Steve Martin's 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile'; 'Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992'
About
Write to jacob [at] fairform [dot] xyz