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)
Filter by community
Biden vs. Trump Presidential Debate #1
Donald Trump, who has destroyed or impaired so much of what we cherish and deem important in America, took his pickaxe to the First 2020 Presidential debate tonight, interrupting Joe Biden almost every time he spoke. And though Chris Wallace weakly protested this disruption many times, he failed to stop Trump's rampage. Wallace should have cut off Trump's microphone, or requested the audio engineer to do that.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in The Swamp
John G. McDaid: Found in Translation
Let me introduce you to John G. McDaid. He was my student in the MA in Media Studies Program at the New School for Social Research in New York City in the early 1980s. I was delighted when his first professionally published science fiction story "Jigoku No Mokushiroku" (in Asimov's Science Fiction magazine) won the Sturgeon Award in 1995, right around the time one of my first published stories, "The Chronology Protection Case," in Asimov's older sister magazine, Analog, was nominated for the Nebula Award. I was pleased when I began to see John start showing up in Media Ecology Association conferences about a decade later, singing a variety of catchy songs.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Beat
Review of 'The Platform'
Parables come in all kinds of platforms. The Platform, a Spanish film with English subtitles now on Netflix, is a story about the essence of humanity tested to its very limits. That’s a worthy parable, to say the least. Unfortunately, this movie’s unique way of telling it is disgusting, in the literal sense of that word. The question is: was that kind of stomach-turning story necessary to convey such a crucial message?
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Horror
Review of 'Into the Night'
In the old days, they used to have something called B-movies. They were intended to accompany the A-movie, the main attraction, in the double features that played in neighborhood movie houses, before television came along and ate their lunch and closed them down. Many of those B-movies were quite enjoyable, but they weren’t exactly Oscar material. I don’t think there were any B-television shows, certainly none on cable and none on Netflix, Amazon video, and other streaming services. But if ever there were a streaming television series that felt like a B-movie – in this case, a six-episode movie serial – it would be Into the Night, which went up on Netflix in May 2020.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Horror
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.6-7
Lots of important, even game-changing events in episodes 1.6-7 of Raised by Wolves, up on HBO Max Thursday night: Campion and Paul are becoming rivals, even though it looks as if they'll still ultimately have each other's backs in life and death situations. But other than that, Campion is representing spirit and Paul logic and science, which is interesting in itself since Campion comes from the atheists and Paul the true-believers. This may be a significant indicator of the future and the changing roles of central characters on this planet.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Raised by Wolves' 1.4-5
I thought the 4th and 5th episodes of Raised by Wolves were really good, especially the 5th, because it gave us a nice big origin story about Mother -- how she was created, and endowed/programmed with her mission. Her maker tells her she's humanity's last hope, a nod to Star Wars mythology.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Seven Books about Trump
I often say to my students, when we talk about which is the most powerful, predominating medium in our political world, that you shouldn't count older media out. Trump made Twitter his medium, because he had a talent for the short, vehement missive, and it allowed him to communicate directly to his followers, without the intervention of the press (Hitler loved radio and its affordance of direct broadcasts from him for the same reason).
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in The Swamp
Review of Tobias Cabral's 'New Eyes'
Tobias Cabral picked a good time to send me his 2018 novel New Eyes for review. Mars is in the air. Actually, it's always been in the air, or at least, at the top of the air, in the sky. But NASA's Perseverance is on its way to Mars, with a landing date in February of next year. Elon Musk wants to colonize the Red Planet (I'm 100% on board, here's a talk I gave at the 19th Annual International Mars Society Convention at The Catholic University in Washington, DC on 23 September 2016):
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
Review of 'Amazing Stories (2020)' 1.2: The Heat
Life after death stories -- the departed coming back to help, haunt, or otherwise interact with the living -- are a dime a dozen. Amazing Stories' (2020) second episode, "The Heat," manages to visit this well-trodden path with a story that is at least somewhat original, even if that originality relies upon yet another very well-worn gambit in fiction.
By Paul Levinson5 years ago in Futurism
