EastWesterly Review
since 1999

Where things stand . . .

Let us pause, before we proceed, to praise that most basic of feelings, fear. It protects us from blundering into the tiger’s range when we hear her roar, keeps us from dancing in rush hour traffic, pushes us away from the teetering edge. So we may be forgiven a bit when, stripped of our conference funding, warned in stark language against promoting anything “woke” or “DEI” or that includes “gender ideology,” we chose to take the PostModern Village Conference for 2024/2025 deep underground.

Not just underground: the conference this time took place in hallways and stairwells, on park benches and in the back booths of campus-adjacent dive bars. The conference was really a series of cells, each only vaguely aware of the others, all contributing to the loosely coherent whole you see here.

Names have been changed, images altered.

The work of critique, of criticality, must go on, no matter what regime reigns supreme.

Furst ‘n’ Early: Stephen Furst and the Pioneering Comedy of the 1980s, or I Sing the Body Positive

–Eliot Dorfman

Delivered in a parking lot between attendees ostensibly standing around a food truck waiting on their orders of Freddy Frijoles’s Fancy Nachos, Dorfman found Furst’s affable goofballery as a way of disarming the audience’s normal stance of ridicule of People of Size in order to send a more serious message: isn’t this great?

The Bad Badge: ICE, Dirty Harry, and the Ballad of Deputy Dan, a Musical Revue

–Ossman Proctor and Austin Bergman

Back from the shadows (again), Proctor and Bergman broadcast their paper on an unused frequency from a low-wattage portable radio station just off campus. If you tuned in between 2:30 and 3:15 a.m., you received the intended message, and then you took off your shoes—for industry!

The Infernal Revenue Cervix: Money, Misogyny, and the Rise of Corporate Fascism

–Pier Speculum

Too real! Too damn real and too damn soon!

Wharton Heels the WHO: How the Pandemic and the Rise of Tribal Trumpism Turned Us All Against Public Health, a Death Blow

–Saleen Grounder, MD

Grounder, a legit medical doctor with legit medical chops, read her paper to us on rounds at the campus learning clinic one unsuspecting Saturday morning. The requirements to participate in this surreptitious teach-in were a white lab coat, a fake stethoscope, and a willingness, so rare these days, to expose oneself to the viral truth.

Roth, Broth, and the Chicken Soup Series (sponsored by Schmaltz Malt Liquor)

–Alex Zuckerman

Given the current political climate, we were (pleasantly) surprised that Zuckerman’s corporate sponsor didn’t back out, even providing free pours of its flagship Pollo Porter at The Bends, a bar that takes its “dive bar” theme literally. We get the feeling that Roth himself would have joined us, maybe with a painkiller-laced martini in hand (which, notably, The Bends doesn’t serve).

Dave Chappelle Roan: Pop Culture and the Politics of the Queer Takeback, a Battleplan

–Kay Lee Poughny

To experience the whole paper, interested parties were instructed via Signal chat to walk campus over a certain route, decoding the cryptic sidewalk chalk markings. We got it, but in order to be part of this reading/participatory artwork, we had to swear ourselves to secrecy about what it actually said.

TikTalk: Online Videos and the Resurgence of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, a Warning in Interpretive Dance

–Rickettesia Longeway

Delivered as a series of short videos on the eponymous social media platform, Longeway’s paper was simultaneously a study in disease spread, a comment on online culture, and a cautionary tale. Did we mention it was also in semaphore? We’ll DEET ourselves, tuck our pant legs into our hiking boots, and limit our screen time from here on out.

AphAsia: on Face Blindness and Discrimination, or Why Do They All Look the Same?

–Prosser Pagnosia

Spread verbally through a campus-wide game of “telephone,” we’re not sure if the version we heard was 100% accurate, but the gist is this: it’s not them; it’s you.

Bubbles, Butts, and Who Put the Donk in the Donk-Be-Donk-De-Donk: on cars, Cracks, and Street Cred, a Street Takeover

–Soulja Capriccio

One thing is for certain: the flash mob has morphed into a hopping, revving, smokey-donut cutting moment of complete mayhem. In this case, it took place in an exurban cul-de-sac in an unbuilt housing development far from traffic cams and snooping neighbors. Dangerous driving met dangerous curves.

The Girl with the Pearl Necklace: the Politics of Sex, Art and Online Porn

–John Webber

Going incognito mode didn’t assure enough privacy, and work laptops were abandoned in favor of burner machines with VPNs. This NSFW paper nonetheless delivered a money-shot of spot-on intellectualism.

The Echo Chambers Brothers: Psychedelia, Silencing, and Civil Rights, a Jam Session

–Willie Lester

The time has come today for this paper, delivered from the stage, seemingly impromptu, by an ostensible pick-up band at FishLake, a prog rock and acid funk bar just west of where you thought it was. Despite the title, the paper was loud, tripped out on liberation and the personal power of altered states.

Ruff Trade or Putt-ing on the Ritz: Property Development, Golf, and Habitat Destruction, a Sit-In

–Mennie Aberdeen

While we got some warnings of “fore!” and some polite requests to play through, Aberdeen’s planned act of civil disobedience dissolved under a trickle of Purewater’s “Midwest nice.” Despite this, a killdeer or two were moved to more secure, if not greener, nearby pastures.

Let’s Link Arms: Drones, Cyberwar, and the Militarization of Connectivity

–Hedlee La-Maar

La-Maar’s opsec involved coded messages on shortwave radio, frequency hopping, and cyphers, but the gist of it is that social media and e-commerce are only sidelines; the cut and thrust of it, from Arpanet to now, is the oldest trade of all: the mercantilism of death.

Air Traffic Control Sinners: Ideology, Imagination, and the Politicization of the FAA

–Wmo Ewr

A radio scanner and the FlightAware app were necessary to fully access this paper, but, while written over the last few years, its content has pretty much been the stuff of headlines by now. If you’re old enough to trace this mess back to Reagan, you’ll find a fellow traveler in Ewr.

Pop-a-Smurf: Peyo, Warhol, and the Anomie of Artful Animation

–Pierre Franquin

Ask for Docent Sleepy at the Purewater University Bagler Museum of Art, and you’ll get a recitation of this paper as you process through galleries ranging from Rockwell (the singer) to Rembrandt (the toothpaste). And if that SCUM doesn’t raise your overall ire, just about nothing will.

Tally-Ban: Arithmetic, Fatwas, and the Politics of Free Will, an Accounting

–Abdul Mansour

We had to make an appointment and then show up at the scheduled time to the firm of Kunduz and Kush, then ask for the Full Barakzai in order to hear the paper, but it came with a printout from a spreadsheet quantifying the more salient points. The main idea, though, is that in numeracy there is liberation.

Polly Gone: Geometry, Geopolitics, and the Theorems of Trafficking in Exotic Birds

–Psitti Acines

To hear this one, we met in a stairwell in the parking garage of the Purewater airport, but Acines, incredibly, having smuggled in a full size chalkboard, T-square, and colored chalk, laid it all out: wildlife crime can be predicted and interdicted with the dicta of Pythagoras.

Revlon-ution: How Makeup Tutorials Have Led to a Critical Mass for Social Change, a Mascara-scree(d)

–Joseph Lachman

Hey guys! Today I’m gonna show you how to blend your foundation and save the whole world!

X-ing Out the Truth: Soviet Propaganda, Social Media, and Madness of Oligarchy, a Reply Thread 1/

–Glavlit Pravda

Search the subreddits long enough and you’ll run into this paper, which overlays and juxtaposes Socialist-Realist depictions of life in the USSR onto the simplistic brutalism of the communications strategies of the current US presidential administration. Chilling, but effective!

Loyal-Tease: Flirting, Flashing, and the Fascism of Falling in Line, a Burlesque

–Carmen St. John

Show up at the Pump & Grind, a former hangout for firefighters and metal workers, now Purewater’s only queer-friendly strip club, at the right time of day, and you’ll get an eyeful: behave or be brave.

No-Shows, Low-Blows, and the Go-Gos, a Primer on the Passion for Presence

–Charlotte Shock

We had to stay home at the right time for this one, but we got the feeling that Woody Allen was right this time: 90% of success is just showing up.

Harry and the Hermitage, on the Collectibility of Cryptid Memorabilia, and Art Show

–Bernard Sanderson

Guerrilla Art is alive and well: he’s living in the wooded area on the north side of campus, living off Dumpster trash and Faberge eggs.

Flamenco, Flashovers, and the Fancy-Dancing of Firefighting

–Gitano Murcia

Oddly enough, the clientele of the Pump & Grind mainly just expanded when it went gay, and the remaining first-responders gathered in the back lot, guitars in hand, to give this address on how their fast footwork keeps the blazes at bay.

Looking Ahead . . .

While this year’s conference created certain access challenges, it occurs to us that ’twas ever thus: the good stuff has always taken a little more work to find. Whether driven to the basement stacks by the indifference of the marketplace, the callow mediocrity of populism, or, in this case, the heavy hand of blatant authoritarianism, the gems typically hide out while the world rages on.

That fact gives us hope that the work will continue: in light of current circumstances, how could we not think these thoughts, even if we’re committing our words to the back wards of posterity? But neither is that an excuse for accepting suppression of critical thought. The great wash of schlock was always what we put up with in the West for the freedom to say what we needed to say.

We’ve all but eliminated the latter, and yet the schlock abides, a fetid flood to drown us.

Writing for EastWesterly Review

PB Wombat (he/haw), Emeritus Professor of Critical Culture

Purewater University

Photo credits:

Mennie Aberdeen – pete beard

Psitti Acines – Jochen Spalding

Soulja Capriccio – Maia C

Eliot Dorfman – hcopperm

Wmo Ewr – Den Edison

Pierre Franquin – BigSisLilSis

Saleen Grounder – Helen Haden

Joseph Lachman – Long Mai

Hedlee La-Maar – Chloe Bray

Willie Lester – Paul de Gregorio

Rickettesia Longeway – Helen Haden

Abdul Mansour – Jack

Gitano Murcia – Newtown grafitti

Prosser Pagnosia – editionmk-verlagde

Glavlit Pravda – WJ van den Eijkhof

Kay Lee Poughny – Michael Mayer

Ossman Proctor and Austin Bergman – flowbadger

Bernard Sanderson – Gregor Smith

Charlotte Shock – Ana Sofia Guerreirinho

Carmen St. John – Cats by moonwhisker

Pier Speculum – Viola

John Webber – fauxto_digit

Alex Zuckerman – Helen Haden