Benjamin Phillips Technology, Psychoanalysis, Culture
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Born This Way and Queer Straightjacketing

Helen Razer recently wrote an article arguing that labels like 'homosexual' put us all in artificially small boxes, and we should resist these terms. The author makes reference to Sigmund Freud's theory of bisexuality to state that the idea of a fixed sexual orientation is in all cases a straight-jacket, and further, the idea of "helping people out of the closet" is actually helping them into a normative, narrowly defined sexuality that doesn't match the natural mutability of human sexual desire. Rather than liberating, helping people come out actually prevents them from realizing an end to op[...]
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The House in Hitchcock's "Psycho"

The Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock’s "Psycho" was largely modeled on an oil painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The canvas is called “House by the Railroad” and was painted in 1925 by American iconic artist Edward Hopper. The architectural details, viewpoint and austere sky is almost identical as seen in the film. Although Hopper denied attempting to express any emotion in his paintings- he stated purpose in his work was journalistic- it is impossible not to feel a sense of isolation created by the interplay of intense light and shadow. Here the light illuminates a myste[...]
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Needle Park

A young woman tries to comfort her husband and his brother. All three heroin addicts. By now, crime is the only way to get the money to support their habit. This incredibly vivid and moving photo essay was published in Life Magazine in 1965. The accompanying article, The World of Needle Park, was later adapted by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne into the 1971 movie, The Panic in Needle Park- veiled versions of the lovers, Karen and Johnny, seen above, were played by Al Pacino and Kitty Winn. Though there had been movies about heroin addiction before, such as Sinatra's The Man with t[...]
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The Eames Lounge Chair

Charles & Ray Eames show their then-new masterpiece on the Arlene Francis "Home" show broadcast on the NBC television network in 1956. This fascinating piece of post-war American design demonstrates how, properly conceived and executed, consumer goods can rise to the level of art. Examples of these furnishings are part of the permanent collection of New York's Museum of Modern Art. When Ray and Charles Eames arrived in Los Angeles in 1941, they turned a spare room in their apartment into a workshop to experiment with molded plywood forms with the goal of mass producing furniture. During th[...]
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Want Ads

“The classified ads (and stock-market quotations) are the bedrock of the press. Should an alternative source of easy access to such diverse daily information be found, the press will fold.” Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964. McLuhan's comment above is interesting because it seems to explain the much bemoaned decline of the newspaper industry not in relation to the rise of online media as a whole- social media, blogs, and so on- but through the usurpation of a seemingly minor component by a new service, Craigslist. Job postings, , public notices, have all b[...]
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Sigmund Freud's Voice

This is the only known recording of Sigmund Freud's voice, taken by the BBC in 1938. I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neurotic patients. Under the influence of an older friend and by my own efforts, I discovered some important new facts about the unconscious in psychic life, the role of instinctual urges, and so on. Out of these findings grew a new science, psychoanalysis, a part of psychology, and a new method of treatment of the neuroses. I had to pay heavily for this bit of good luck. People did not believe in my facts and thought my th[...]
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Videogames and Violence

Effective marketing is, at its most basic level, a method of reducing perceived risk. When an commercial works, what fear, embarrassment, or anxiety is present in the ad is clearly resolved in the product. Insurance ads are a typical example. The house burns, the family looks lost and devastated, then the insurance agent appears and the sun comes out, and their problems go away. This ad for the Playstation video game platform follows this principle, but on a very subtle and effective level. How is perceived risk reduced through the product here? I would suggest it has to do with the limitat[...]
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Machine Sex

Romance is maybe not yet totally dead, but its forthcoming death is signalled by object-gadgets which promise to deliver excessive pleasure but which effectively reproduce only the lack itself.The latest fashion is the Stamina Training Unit, a counterpart to the vibrator: a masturbatory device that resembles a battery-powered light (so we're not embarrassed when carrying it around). You put the erect penis into the opening at the top, push the button, and the object vibrates till satisfaction … The product is available in different colours, levels of tightness and forms (hairy or without hair,[...]
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Abuse and Belief

Psychoanalysts treating victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic church in Ireland have reported an interesting phenomenon. On the whole, patients do not lose their faith as a result of the sexual assault by Church officials. On the contrary, many victims of Catholic sexual abuse find some degree of relief from the lingering effects of the abuse by refusing to allow their abusers to take their faith away from them. Christianity, whose ethics is maybe best summed up in the proscription to "Love your enemy", is based exactly on the forgiveness of the unforgivable. In the same way that God was abl[...]
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About / Contact

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Hi! I’m Benjamin Phillips. Thank for visiting!

I work in the technology industry in the San Francisco Bay Area. My main interests are in technology and how individuals and cultures relate to technological change. I heavily indulge in the idiotic enjoyment of pop culture- movies, music, art, photography, etc. I sometimes try to connect the two areas.

This blog is an experiment, a place to practice writing, collect interesting content I find on the internet, and so on. It is very much a work in progress. If you have any feedback or thoughts on the how the site works or any of the content here, let me know!

Contact

Drop me a line!

Phone : 4156694381
Email : [email protected]

Art

  • Art
  • 8 days ago

The House in Hitchcock's "Psycho"

The Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock’s "Psycho" was largely modeled on an oil painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The canvas is called “House by the Railroad” and[...]
  • Art
  • 101 days ago

Otto Dix

Otto Dix was a German painter noted for ruthless & harshly realistic depictions of Weimar society & the brutality of war. Dix served in World War I, eventually earning [...]

Culture

Needle Park

A young woman tries to comfort her husband and his brother. All three heroin addicts. By now, crime is the only way to get the money to support their habit. This incredibl[...]

The Eames Lounge Chair

Charles & Ray Eames show their then-new masterpiece on the Arlene Francis "Home" show broadcast on the NBC television network in 1956. This fascinating piece of post-war American d[...]

Abuse and Belief

Psychoanalysts treating victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic church in Ireland have reported an interesting phenomenon. On the whole, patients do not lose their faith as a resul[...]

William S. Burroughs

"I’m not one of those weak-spirited, sappy Americans who want to be liked by all the people around them. I don’t care if people hate my guts; I assume most of them do. The ques[...]

The Gulabi Gang: India's Armed Feminists

The Gulabi gang is a group of women vigilantes active across North India named after the pink saris their members wear. The group was founded as a response to widespread domestic a[...]

Politics

Born This Way and Queer Straightjacketing

Helen Razer recently wrote an article arguing that labels like 'homosexual' put us all in artificially small boxes, and we should resist these terms. The author makes reference to [...]

Meme Politics

Meme Politics Social media has profoundly changed political communication. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and other social networks have created a new kind of consumer-citizen which i[...]

The Personal is Not the Political

"The Personal is the Political" is a phrase that came out of 1960's and 1970's feminist organizations. Closely associated with the work of Carol Hanisch, the phrase referred to wom[...]

What do Women Dream?

“To return psychoanalysis to a veridical path, it is worth recalling that analysis managed to go so far in the revelation of man’s desires only by following, in the veins of neuros[...]

Psychoanalysis

Born This Way and Queer Straightjacketing

Helen Razer recently wrote an article arguing that labels like 'homosexual' put us all in artificially small boxes, and we should resist these terms. The author makes reference to [...]
  • Art
  • 8 days ago

The House in Hitchcock's "Psycho"

The Bates house in Alfred Hitchcock’s "Psycho" was largely modeled on an oil painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The canvas is called “House by the Railroad” and[...]

Sigmund Freud's Voice

This is the only known recording of Sigmund Freud's voice, taken by the BBC in 1938. I started my professional activity as a neurologist trying to bring relief to my neuroti[...]

Videogames and Violence

Effective marketing is, at its most basic level, a method of reducing perceived risk. When an commercial works, what fear, embarrassment, or anxiety is present in the ad is clearly[...]

Machine Sex

Romance is maybe not yet totally dead, but its forthcoming death is signalled by object-gadgets which promise to deliver excessive pleasure but which effectively reproduce only the[...]

King of Kong: The Fractal Unconscious

King of Kong The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a surprisingly charming 2007 documentary film which follows Steve Weibe, an unemployed Seattle engineer, in his quest to ac[...]

The Personal is Not the Political

"The Personal is the Political" is a phrase that came out of 1960's and 1970's feminist organizations. Closely associated with the work of Carol Hanisch, the phrase referred to wom[...]

Web Analytics: Calculating the Real

"In the average person . . . the body precedes language. In my case, words came first of all.Then . . . came the flesh. It was already, as goes without saying, sadly wasted by word[...]

Klout and Pathological Narcissism

Web 2.0, Postmodernism, Cybersex, Virtual Reality From the late 1980's when computers became home appliances to the bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2000, there was an entire gen[...]

What do Women Dream?

“To return psychoanalysis to a veridical path, it is worth recalling that analysis managed to go so far in the revelation of man’s desires only by following, in the veins of neuros[...]
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Technology

Want Ads

“The classified ads (and stock-market quotations) are the bedrock of the press. Should an alternative source of easy access to such diverse daily information be found, the press wi[...]