Paul Levinson
Bio
Novels The Silk Code, The Plot To Save Socrates, It's Real Life: An Alternate History of The Beatles; LPs Twice Upon A Rhyme & Welcome Up; nonfiction The Soft Edge & Digital McLuhan, translated into 15 languages. Prof, Fordham Univ.
Stories (742)
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Review of Andrey Mir's 'The Digital Reversal'
Andrey Mir's The Digital Reversal, building on his recent series of books with pathbreaking analyses, is so far ahead of any other scholarly work in understanding what's going on in the media world, and hence the world per se, today, that it hurts, even as it brilliantly elucidates. I'm in strong disagreement with Mir's insistence in his final chapter that humanity as we know it is inevitably doomed by the media evolution he so astutely traces and explains, but I nonetheless am sure that if you want to know where we are and perhaps what to do about this immensely difficult world we inhabit in 2025, you can do nothing better than read The Digital Reversal.
By Paul Levinson5 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'And So It Goes'
My wife and I saw the second part of the extraordinary Billy Joel documentary last night, after seeing the first part last week. I've been a big fan of Billy Joel since "Piano Man". I thought and still think "Only the Good Die Young" was a masterpiece song, same for "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," and same for "Uptown Girl" which also has a masterpiece video. And while we're at it, "We Didn't Start the Fire" is a uniquely front-page headlines story with a pretty good video, too. In fact, I can't really think of any Billy Joel recording I don't like, and the same only applies only to a dozen or so other artists beginning with The Beatles.
By Paul Levinson6 months ago in Beat
Review of 'Superman'. Top Story - July 2025.
I've been following and enjoying Superman's exploits since I started watching him played by George Reeves on television when I was a kid in the 1950s, and started reading the comic book a few years later, created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster way back in 1938. And as an adult I even contributed an article about The Man of Steel -- “Superman, Patriotism, and Doing the Ultimate Good” (which explored why Superman didn't just wipe out Hitler and the Nazis in World War Two) in The Man from Krypton -- an anthology published in 2006.
By Paul Levinson6 months ago in Futurism
Review of 'Foundation' 3.1-3.2
At last, in Foundation 3.1, up on Apple TV+ last week, an episode worthy of the greatest science fiction trilogy ever written -- the one by Isaac Asimov. To be sure, the story on the screen continues to be very different than the one of the page, but this beginning of third season of Foundation on streaming TV has recognizable characters and pieces doing what they're supposed to do, none more so than The Mule.
By Paul Levinson6 months ago in Futurism
Senator Alex Padilla vs. the American Gestapo
The above is the complete extant video of what happened to US Senator Alex Padilla the other day in California, the state he represents. We don't see what happened before this, but the video begins with Sen. Padilla being pushed by some kind of Federal agent. Padilla tells his assaulter who he is -- "Senator Padilla" -- and his assaulter's response, joined by other assasulters, is to forcibly escort the Senator out of the room and then wrestle him to the ground.
By Paul Levinson7 months ago in The Swamp
Brian Wilson. Top Story - June 2025.
I grew up listening to rock 'n' roll, which was half doo-wop, and half Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Elvis. As the 1960s began to emerge, the Four Seasons in 1962 and the Beach Boys in 1963 carried on with a modernized, popified doo-wop sound. The Beatles were closer than just around the next corner. And that was the milieu in which I formed my first group, The Transits, slightly more old-fashioned than the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but covering their best songs.
By Paul Levinson7 months ago in Beat
MobLand
Just saw the finale of what will almost certainly be the first season of a tour-de-force series about warring crime families on the other side of the pond, i.e., the UK. MobLand has everything -- a powerful, unpredictable story bristling with what The Godfather and its sequels did so well in the movies. That would be a potent, explosive blend of violence and family dynamics that can make your head spin.
By Paul Levinson7 months ago in Criminal
Review of 'Dept. Q'
I've always been a big fan of Nordic Noir. That might seem a bit unusual for a bigger lifelong fan of science fiction, as well as an author of science fiction novels and stories. But the two genres are close cousins -- if detective mysteries are whodunnits, science fiction can be aptly read and seen as whatdunnits -- and some authors combined the two genres, as Isaac Asimov astutely did with his robot detective novels, which introduced and explicated the famous "three laws of robotics" in a series of murder mysteries. (I took a crack at blending science fiction and forensic detection as well, with my Phil D'Amato stories and novels.)
By Paul Levinson7 months ago in Criminal
Dylan Debuts His Cover of Ricky Nelson's "Garden Party"
I saw Bob Dylan singing Ricky Nelson's "Garden Party" in San Diego (on May 15, 2025) a few days ago on YouTube. I posted a link to it on all my social media. But I had to say more. In no order of importance (because I think all of these points are important):
By Paul Levinson7 months ago in Beat
Review of 'You' Final Season
I just finished binging the final season of You. Some thoughts: [No spoilers ahead, until I warn you about them.] For some reason in this final (5th) season of this series about the deeply complex serial killer Joe Goldberg (though I guess most or even all serial killers are complex), I began thinking a lot about its comparisons to Dexter and its spin-offs (my all-time favorite serial killer series, and one of my all-time favorite TV series, period -- in the Top 5 all-time, I'd say). Now, I may have made comparisons of You to Dexter in my reviews of the first four seasons of You, but I'd rather write this review right now than read over those earlier reviews, which of course you are welcome to, if you like (see the links at the end of this review).
By Paul Levinson9 months ago in Geeks
