writing, communications & creative strategy
A few years ago I wrote an essay about the history of powerviolence, an obscure sub-subgenre of punk rock that originated on the West Coast but has since spread to … Continue reading Powerviolence, or How to Play Punk with a Hammer
My newest “Outside Art” column is up @ Quiet Lunch, looking at Alok Vaid-Menon’s recent performance in Chicago.
I’ve got a new article posted at the Center for Digital Ethics & Policy: “Facebook is a media company, but what’s a media company?” When Facebook says that it’s a … Continue reading New article for the Center for Digital Ethics & Policy
When I completed grad school in 2015, I was awarded a Media Studies Award from Oxford Bibliographies (Oxford University Press) for my work in cult cinema. After nearly three years … Continue reading Cult Cinema Bibliography
I have a new column for Quiet Lunch, “Outside Art.” My first entry is on Chicago’s Intuit Museum of Outsider Art. Compared to the usual culture-media pipeline, I’m not writing … Continue reading New Column for Quiet Lunch
Hey! Check out this promotional video I scripted for World Business Chicago. Voiceover by Bill Kurtis.
Like any other industry, media is an amalgamation; a pulsating admixture of anxiety, ideology, cacophony and pure green envy. The products churned out by the Media Machine—everything from Twitter posts … Continue reading 13 newsletters for upping your media IQ
Got another call from MEL Magazine based on some of the first-person narratives I provided last year regarding how my wife and I worked our way out of $100,000 in … Continue reading Financial advice for MEL Magazine
This is the Chicago I saw in 2017. A city of stoicism, secrets, strife, sadness and surprise. All iPhone 7 for @benvanloon.jpg.
If my top 13 albums of 2017 were donuts, they’d have everything from rainbow sprinkles to lab-grade PCP. These were albums that played like my personal soundtrack for the past … Continue reading My Top 13 Albums of 2017
I’ve almost always kept a running list of the books I read, but this year I decided to go Full Nerd. I used Google Sheets to log each book I’ve … Continue reading Full Nerd: 2017 in Books
Provincetown, Cape Cod, Boston, Georges Island. No particular order. No particular need for order.
