2020 is the year Taylor Swift decided to take on William Wordsworth. She does so on the standout bonus track to folklore, “the lakes.”1 In a documentary about the album,…
Contemporaries Essays
Bad Songs about Bad Things
At some point in the early 2010s, a gif of Taylor Swift was making its way around on Tumblr. In a sequence of images, Taylor Swift wears a wry yet…
Growing Sideways, Gazing Back
The Taylor Swift of evermore is our pop Heraclitus: nothing here happens for the first time, everything’s a return to something, a rewrite, a re-take, a retraction, a chance to…
Introduction: from folklore to evermore
Taylor Swift has a reputation for many things. Dropping surprise albums is not one of them, at least not before this year. If folklore is inspired by William Wordsworth, evermore…
No Closure
Shortly before the pandemic, I binge-watched all of BoJack Horseman from the dark cave of my late-night living room. I became obsessed with it. I talked about it to everyone…
The Lost Futures of BoJack and Diane
Just before the credits roll in BoJack Horseman’s final episode, the camera tilts leaving BoJack and Diane visible from only the mid-chest up. If we weren’t already paying attention to…
Good Boy Gone Bad: The Rot in Mr. Peanutbutter’s House
He’s a man who has suffered no consequences. His is a recklessness born of experience. He’s like a malevolent Mr. Magoo. He always knows the I-beam is going to swing…
“Now this is television! Turn on the rain!” BoJack Horseman and J. D. Salinger
In Season 2 of BoJack Horseman, Hollywoo agent Princess Carolyn learns that J. D. Salinger is alive, hiding out at Joe Nobody’s Shop for Tandem Bicycles, having faked his own…
It’s Not Ibsen
Back in the 90s, BoJack Horseman was on a very famous TV show. It wasn’t a very good show, but the characters, BoJack tells us, were good people.1 BH: I…
Major Falls and Minor Lifts: The Character System of BoJack Horseman
BoJack Horseman is set in a cartoonish world where hybrid beings satirize familiar behavior and in which backgrounds keep up the visual equivalent of a laugh track. We notice moles…