"ABOUT THE AUTHOR"

The following passage is taken from Andy Nowicki's new collection of essays, Ruminations of a Low-Status Male, Volume 1, now available for a low low price from Kindle and in paperback.

by Andy Nowicki

I am not a successful man.

I don’t say this because I’m eagerly soliciting assurances to the contrary. I’m not courting your flattery. I’m merely reflecting upon an observable fact.

As always, refuge can be found in semantics. Yes, the question of what constitutes “success” is of course contingent upon how one defines the term. And yes, there are less successful men in the world than me. But I don’t claim to be below all others; I merely, and quite rightly, declare myself to fall well short of the “success” bar.

THE CHARLOTTESVILLE 'STAND DOWN' SCAM IN FIVE EASY STEPS

"Standin' down in C-town": Whoa there, boys! Careful you don't work too hard! 

by Andy Nowicki

Now that it has been confirmed that the Charlottesville police were given a "stand-down" order on August 12, in order to provoke a state of violence and thus create a pretext to cancel the #UnitetheRight rally, the appreciative video viewer can trace the shape of how this whole sick joke went down.

SALUTING GENERAL LEE

Which of these two is the true "hater"?

                           by Andy Nowicki

Successful brainwashing through indoctrination can have the most extraordinary effects on the human consciousness.

Indeed, indoctrinal brainwashing, once it “takes,” can fundamentally alter one’s perceptions of his surroundings, much in the manner of a psychedelic drug. Being brainwashed can make a person unaware of what’s right under his nose, and, conversely, can cause him to hallucinate wildly.

THE DISCRETE WIT OF WHIT STILLMAN

                         
                                                              by Andy Nowicki

(This article was originally published at Counter-Currents in October 2012. It is republished here to serve as an introduction to Andy Nowicki's upcoming review of Stillman's latest film, Love and Friendship.)

In a previous life, before I pledged fealty to the art of the written word-- a pursuit for which I have subsequently won fame, fortune, and unbounded acclaim-- a different calling beckoned for a time. 

I enjoyed reading as a kid, but I also loved the cinema, while at the same time generally detesting everything savoring of "Hollywood" glitz, glamour, and celebrity; by my late-teen years, I'd found a number of films with which I felt I could identify, which spoke in a unique way to my restless young heart.

HAMLET, THE ANTI-MAN: ANTI-LIFE HAMLET

In this second segment of his series of podcasts on "Hamlet," Andy Nowicki reflects upon the surpassingly bleak central message of Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy, footnoting his remarks with useful references to Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and the 80s teen suicide comedy "Heathers."

https://soundcloud.com/jnow1101/hamlet-the-anti-man-anti-life-hamlet

THE JEW OF WALL STREET

by Andy Nowicki

Martin Scorsese’s sordid, obscene, spiritedly profane, and epically hilarious new film The Wolf of Wall Street is an unflinching depiction of unfettered greed and unrestrained sleaze amongst the ethically challenged and the morally retarded. Yet as comprehensive a catalogue of depravity as the movie is (clocking in at a near three-hour running time), there is a significant piece missing. For one reason or another, Scorsese has rendered protagonist Jordan Belfort’s Jewish identity cryptic at best.

SO RUDE

The band MAGIC!, whose song "Rude" currently rules the charts 

by Andy Nowicki

I am no expert on men’s issues, nor can I realistically claim to major in manliness, but still I venture to declare that the success of “Rude,” a song now gaining extensive airplay, unintentionally underscores a prominent crisis in modern-day masculinity.