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: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Hughes, 1987]
A Thanksgiving Given:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles as the Only Thanksgiving Classic

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Introduction:

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles movie poster - John Hughes - Thanskgiving, sincerity, restraintI very nearly turned this Thursday Theater article into a list of 10 Thanksgiving movies for you to check out, but after some deliberation I realized that I could only cobble together 3 movies that were both actually relevant to the holiday and passable enough to recommend (if you’re curious, the other 2 movies are the movie version of Alice’s Restaurant and By the Light of the Silvery Moon).

In truth, I probably should have seen this coming, since there are fewer than 10 Christmas movies which meet both criteria for me. So, instead, I’m cutting out the passable or kitsch options and focusing on recommending the one movie which I feel deserves to be associated with the holiday in perpetuity: John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

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[Film: Planes, Trains and Automobiles, John Hughes, 1987]
A Thanksgiving Given:

Planes, Trains and Automobiles as the Only Thanksgiving Classic

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

[Game: Spelunky, Mossmouth, 2012]
Platforming Perfection:

The Incredible Design and Even Better Execution of Mossmouth’s Spelunky

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Introduction:

Derek Yu’s Spelunky first appeared as a freeware game in 2008, and it soon became a beloved piece of software for many gamers in the know (including acting as one of the two biggest influences on Edmund McMillen’s design for The Binding of Isaac). Yu then turned his attention (enlisting the help of Andy Hull under the Mossmouth heading) to a ground-up HD remake of Spelunky, and its release garnered a victory in the design category of 2012’s IGF, followed by PC Gamer naming Spelunky‘s Steam release their game of the year for 2013. That second accolade resulted in a lot of controversy, with gamers all over the internet commenting concerns about how a simple 2-D indie game could possibly beat all of 2013’s massive studio releases, with each franchise’s fans arguing their case.

If you know me well, you’ve already got a pretty good idea of what sort of remarks I made toward those negative reactions. Mostly, I wondered whether most of those commenters were merely judging the game by its cover art, as it were, and had not actually played the game. As it stands, I would not only concur that Spelunky was the best game released in 2013, but I would go yet further and say that Spelunky is one of the best games I have ever played. To explain why, I will now compare Spelunky to the original Super Mario Bros. games.

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[Game: Spelunky, Mossmouth, 2012]
Platforming Perfection:

The Incredible Design and Even Better Execution of Mossmouth’s Spelunky

 was last modified: May 4th, 2022 by Daniel Podgorski

[Work: The Stranger, Albert Camus, 1942]
Smiling While Despised:

The Ending of Albert Camus’ The Stranger and the Beginning of Authenticity

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Albert Camus Sketch by M.R.P. - The Stranger ending - authenticity, existentialism

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Introduction:

A month ago, your Tuesday Tome article consisted of a discussion of the topic of authenticity in the existential classic The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. This week, I would like to look at this same theme, authenticity, in the context of a work that is not merely labeled existential, but existentialist, appearing as it does among the canon of the French existentialists in the 20th century: The Stranger by Albert Camus.

The nature of this article is such that it requires spoiling basic plot details of The Stranger, so you should only continue reading after this paragraph if you either do not mind spoilers or have already read the book.

Specifically, I would like to talk about the ending epiphany of protagonist Meursault, and what it is that allows Meursault to face his death happily at the end of The Stranger. My initial premise is that attainment of the aforementioned authenticity allows Meursault to do so, but this premise will be complicated by the novel’s very last line, for which I will offer three different but related readings.

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[Work: The Stranger, Albert Camus, 1942]
Smiling While Despised:

The Ending of Albert Camus’ The Stranger and the Beginning of Authenticity

 was last modified: March 8th, 2025 by Daniel Podgorski

[Topics: Existentialism, Morality]
Freedom is Not a Humanism:

Responding to the Ethical System in Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism”

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Jean-Paul Sartre Sketch by M.R.P. - Existentialism is a Humanism criticism - freedom

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Introduction:

Whatever your personal estimation of his ideas, it is nevertheless true that Jean-Paul Sartre ushered in one of those rare moments in human history when a school of contemporary philosophy was highly integrated into the zeitgeist. And while I personally find Sartre’s contributions to literature (i.e. his plays, short stories, and novels) to be so exceptional as to far outweigh his contributions to philosophy, I do find value in both.

The work by him which is most likely to have been encountered by any student of philosophy, however, is not one of his literary works; instead, it is his early speech-turned-essay “Existentialism is a Humanism.” This is an essay I generally like. After all, I like existentialism; I would not reject the label of existentialist for aspects of my own philosophical convictions. But, that said, I feel that after starting strong Sartre ventures somewhat off-base in “Existentialism is a Humanism” when he nears what is ostensibly his thesis. His initial responses to myopic detractors are useful and well-composed, but his goal (and the intention stated by his title) of showing that existentialism provides a morality of maximising freedom seems misguided.

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[Topics: Existentialism, Morality]
Freedom is Not a Humanism:

Responding to the Ethical System in Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Existentialism is a Humanism”

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

[Film: My Dinner with Andre, Louis Malle, 1981]
Glorious Disagreement:

The Energetic, Artistic Tension that Lends Meaning to Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre

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Wallace Shawn by M.R.P. - Louis Malle, Wallace Shawn, Andre Gregory - conversation, analysis

Caricature Sketch by M.R.P.

Introduction:

It is an odd fact that one of the most daring and excellent films of the early 80s was a movie about two characters sitting down to dinner and having a full conversation with each other in real-time. The daring nature of My Dinner with Andre, of course, comes from the unabashed simplicity of its premise (as well as the far-ranging content of its writing), but that leaves the source of its excellence still to be accounted for.

Folks who have not seen it may hold the understandable-yet-mistaken notion that perhaps the film succeeds in the same way as other acclaimed single-location dialogue-driven movies, like The Man from Earth and 12 Angry Men—by having the characters slowly uncover or reveal shocking details over time. But the conversation in My Dinner with Andre is just not a traditional narrative; its conversation is rather more similar to, well, a conversation. One of the men, the eponymous Andre (played by André Gregory), shares some recent biography and some philosophical notions, and the other man, Wally (played by Wallace Shawn), responds to Andre’s ideas. That’s it. So, what is it then that makes this movie work so well? That makes it have consistently high ratings from critics and audiences alike? That made Siskel and Ebert each separately rank it as one of their top five films of the entire 1980s?

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[Film: My Dinner with Andre, Louis Malle, 1981]
Glorious Disagreement:

The Energetic, Artistic Tension that Lends Meaning to Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre

 was last modified: April 20th, 2023 by Daniel Podgorski