Author Archives: Daniel Podgorski

About Daniel Podgorski

Daniel Podgorski is a Californian author, essayist, researcher, and web developer. On The Gemsbok, he provides art analysis (on literature, games, and films) and philosophy articles. His areas of expertise are literature and philosophy, with most of his academic research (as well as most of his informal research) focusing on intersections between the two. He has had poetry, short stories, and articles published in various academic and literary journals—and his short fiction has placed first in both competition and conference settings.

[Film: Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1985]
1984 with a Sense of Humor:

The Surreal, Wonderful, and Haunting Humor of Terry Gilliam’s Absurdist Masterpiece, Brazil

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Terry Gilliam Sketch by M.R.P. - Brazil - absurd dystopia satire

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Introduction:

The holiday season has come to a close, and everyone is back at the office. What better time to talk about Terry Gilliam’s masterful critique of bureaucracy run amok in his 1985 film Brazil? Coincidentally, the satirical events in Brazil take place during the holiday season as well, but the buffoonish consumer society of Brazil‘s universe continue their holiday shopping and eating with bombs going off in the same room.

It is no surprise to me that this movie makes use of tropes from absurdist drama, such as exaggeratedly out-of-order priorities and juxtapositions of high culture and low culture (or refinement and violence), as Terry Gilliam and his erstwhile co-writer Charles McKeown collaborated on Brazil‘s screenplay with renowned absurdist playwright Tom Stoppard (who you may know as the writer of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and co-writer of Shakespeare in Love). Indeed, the entire movie dances with dark comedy as it finds joy in showing us tragic and despicable horrors straight out of Orwell’s 1984, and I find joy right along with it.

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[Film: Brazil, Terry Gilliam, 1985]
1984 with a Sense of Humor:

The Surreal, Wonderful, and Haunting Humor of Terry Gilliam’s Absurdist Masterpiece, Brazil

 was last modified: August 26th, 2020 by Daniel Podgorski

[Game: Crypt of the NecroDancer, Brace Yourself Games, 2015]
In the Beginning was the Beat:

How Crypt of the NecroDancer Turns a Potential Gimmick into an Integral Game Mechanic

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Introduction:

It often happens on this site that I set out to write a simple article and realize after I begin that I just have a lot to say about the subject. It happened when I explained a central theme of The Death of Ivan Ilyich; it happened when I analyzed Steven Spielberg’s movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind; and it happened in your previous Mid-week Mission post, on LUFTRAUSERS. Today I want to rectify my last review’s rambling by actually writing a simple article about a relatively new indie game, Crypt of the NecroDancer by Brace Yourself Games. Let’s see how I do.

Crypt of the NecroDancer is a 2-D top-down rhythm-based roguelike. Right off the bat, if you’re anything like me then you’re wary of a genre mash-up that seems to have most of its justification in being a quirky gimmick rather than being a well-reasoned basis for gameplay. But I’m now almost 25 hours into my experience of NecroDancer, and I’m ready to start singing its praises (preferably as a duet with the game’s vocally gifted merchant NPC).

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[Game: Crypt of the NecroDancer, Brace Yourself Games, 2015]
In the Beginning was the Beat:

How Crypt of the NecroDancer Turns a Potential Gimmick into an Integral Game Mechanic

 was last modified: October 24th, 2024 by Daniel Podgorski

[Work: The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, c. late 1300s]
Puppetry and the “Popet:”

Fiction, Reality, and Empathy in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

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Introduction:

Two weeks ago the topic of your Tuesday Tome was a piece of later medieval writing under the title of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I argued that aspects of Sir Gawain‘s structure (and treatment of character placement) serve as a window into the complex and proto-modern gender relations of the medieval period, and so people ought not, as seems rather common to me, be so quick to dismiss that period as some kind of primitive dark era of history.

Prior to that, I have also written on the insight into cyclical violence between factions that can be gained by reading Beowulf. Today I would like to continue this trend of showcasing the vitally relevant and fascinating discussions and lessons that can be gleaned from works of medieval literature by taking a look at what just one segment of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales reveals about Chaucer’s larger project of subjectification[1] across disparate social strata.

Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims by William Blake - The Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer

Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims by William Blake

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[Work: The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer, c. late 1300s]
Puppetry and the “Popet:”

Fiction, Reality, and Empathy in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales

 was last modified: November 8th, 2023 by Daniel Podgorski

[Topics: Logic, Mathematics, Pascal’s Wager, Philosophy of Language]
A Logical Infinite:

The Constrained Probabilistic Definitions of Chance and Infinity in Blaise Pascal’s Famous Wager

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Introduction:

Blaise Pascal - Pascal's Wager - chance- probability - infiniteThe reasons for the lasting impact of Blaise Pascal’s writings, and specifically ‘Pascal’s Wager,’ are not difficult to discern. That piece represents at once the work of a devout Christian and a thoughtful, if self-assured, philosopher (for a work that pits a devout Christian against a thoughtful, if self-assured, philosopher, see my article on C.S. Lewis and James Rachels). In existing as such, Pascal’s Wager seems a seasoned pontification which has stood up to much historical as well as modern criticism of its mathematics and its logic, regardless of how its flaws yield a failure by scope (detailed below).

Despite being famous as an exercise in reason, Pascal’s Wager is a passage grounded on the unstable foundation of chance and built of the inherently unknowable within theology. This text’s utilization of chance is particularly fascinating due to the fact that it shares meaning between an older conception of chance as pure randomness—arising from the potentially providential turning of some wheel of fortune—and a newer conception implemented in probability theory—wherein that same purity of randomness begets a clarity of logic in cases of ever-mounting complexity.

Indeed, despite its having been written by a man supposedly holding to the tenets of fatalism under the umbrella of Jansenism, ‘chance’ is therein nearly conflated with ‘probability,’ as it would later come to be understood. In Blaise Pascal’s Wager, his use of language turns chance itself into a predictable and knowable tool in the application of logic, and in doing so presents a discourse concerning chance which remains relevant to a modern society of dubious piety to the Wager’s ultimate conclusion.

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[Topics: Logic, Mathematics, Pascal’s Wager, Philosophy of Language]
A Logical Infinite:

The Constrained Probabilistic Definitions of Chance and Infinity in Blaise Pascal’s Famous Wager

 was last modified: March 26th, 2020 by Daniel Podgorski

[Film: Stand by Me, Rob Reiner, 1986]
Unromantic Nostalgia:

The Fantastic Rendering of Childhood in Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me

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Introduction:

Stand by Me movie posterIt’s time once again for a movie recommendation, and what better film to recommend for the holiday season than a sensitive coming-of-age story about four childhood friends seeking a corpse? The film in question is Stand by Me, directed by Rob Reiner and starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell as young friends Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern, respectively.

Stand by Me is undoubtedly one of the disproportionately few truly great films in the staggeringly immense catalogue of movies based on the writing of Stephen King. It is a grounded and realistic story of a weird-yet-simple adventure. Yet the impressiveness of its achievement is not its success as a King adaptation; the impressiveness of its achievement is its success as a movie about childhood. For every piece of writing King has penned and seen turned terrible on the big screen, there are at least five failed attempts to capture the experience of childhood, which is Stand by Me‘s greatest strength.

As tempting as it is to dissect what makes this movie great in minute detail, I intend to instead keep this one spoiler-free in the hopes that any and all interested parties will find a way to watch it. Instead, I want to talk about what sets this movie apart from all those other attempts to capture childhood.

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[Film: Stand by Me, Rob Reiner, 1986]
Unromantic Nostalgia:

The Fantastic Rendering of Childhood in Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me

 was last modified: December 16th, 2021 by Daniel Podgorski